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THE FAITH, THE FALSITY AND THE FAILURE 
OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


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The Faith, The Falsity and 


; 4 , Gl asieat cu’ 
Failure of Christian Science 


By \ 
WOODBRIDGE RILEY, Ph.D. 


Member of the American Psychological Association; Lecturer 
- at the Sorbonne, 1920; Author of ‘‘American Thought 
From Puritanism to Pragmatism’’; 


FREDERICK W. PEABODY, LL.B., 


Member of the Massachusetts Bar; Author of 
“The Religio-Medical Masquerade’’; 


and 
CHARLES E. HUMISTON, M.D. Sc.D., 


Professor of Surgery, College of Medicine, 
University of Illinois 


New York CHICAGO 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


LONDON AND EpINBURGH 


Copyright, McmMxxv, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


Printed in the United States of America 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 


Authors’ Foreword 


HE authors of this volume recognise the right of 
every adult freely to exercise his choice of re- 
ligious belief and medical treatment. A re- 
sponsible, conscious adult may employ any form of 
treatment for his own physical ills, or dispense with all 
forms. It is his right to suffer, unrelieved by medical 
skill, and to die, unattended by a medical doctor, if he 
wishes. 

This book is written because the authors strongly 
feel that no one has the right to withhold medical at- 
tendance and treatment from any sick and suffering 
child, or from any adult incapable, because of his con- 
dition, of personal judgment. That barbarity should 
not be permitted. 

Christian Science professes to be a religion and an 
infallible curative agency. It denies the efficacy of 
medical science and withholds medical treatment. The 
operations of its “ healers’ are precisely the same as 
total neglect. The results, especially in the case of 
children, are hideous beyond description. 

Inasmuch as Mrs. Eddy’s religious pretensions and 
her claimed discovery of a cure-all healing system are 
wholly false, the authors believe that the most effective 
cure of the Christian Science distemper, at any rate the 
best way of preventing its spread, is to present in plain 
terms the evidence of the Eddy imposture and of the 
results of the uncontrolled operations of the “ healers.” 
To this end, Dr. Riley, after a most careful investiga- 


6 AUTHORS’ FOREWORD 


tion of the sources of Christian Science, here shows 
precisely where Mrs. Eddy derived every feature of her 
religious and therapeutic systems. Dr. Humiston, by 
many cases selected from a mass of data gathered by a 
nation-wide questionnaire, shows the tragic results of 
Christian Science treatment of helpless adults and still 
more helpless children. Horrible as are the cases pre- 
sented, Dr. Humiston deemed some of his discoveries 
too ghastly for publication in a book designed for gen- 
eral distribution. Mr. Peabody, in terms that will be 
familiar to readers of his Religio-Medical Masquerade, 
demonstrates the complete unveracity of the so-called 
discoverer and founder of Christian Science, her frantic 
money-grabbing, her literally insane grasping for abso- 
lute power over her followers, and leaves no doubt that 
the present government of organised Christian Science 
zealously emulates its predecessor. 


Contents 


PART I 
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
I. PERSONAL SOURCES . : 
II. Tur ProsiEM oF PLAGIARISM 
III. QurmBy, THE DISCOVERER 
IV. Quimsy, THE MEpIcINE Man 
V. QuimsBy, THE OCCULTIST Y 
VI. QuimBy AND THE SCIENCE OF Hearn : 
VII. From Minp Heainc To METAPHYSICS . 
VIII. Arcort, THE INSPIRER 
IX. Mysticism 
X. Divine SCIENCE 
XI. DEMONOLOGY 
XII. PsycHo-ANALYSIS 
XIII. MARRIAGE AND SEX . 
XIV. SUMMARY 3 ane ata Sy 
PART II 
THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
Note. 
I, AuTOCRACY 
II, Autocrats 
III. SupprRESSION 
IV. SwWINDLING 
LESS 
Mie DRAPE A, 
VII. Casu ae on act hs 
PART III 
THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN, SCIENCE 
I, CHRISTIAN ScrENCE—A MeEpicaL PARASITE 
II, Dece1t ; 
Ill... Tue Cores’ by Crprerean Scat : 
IV. Tus Fai,ures oF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE . 
V. CoNncLUSION . 
INDEX 


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I 
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
BY 


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PERSONAL SOURCES * 


CCORDING to her own account, issued for the 
A benefit of the faithful, Mary Morse Baker 
Glover Patterson Eddy, the thrice-married fe- 
male Trismegistus, was born about 1820 at Bow, New 
Hampshire, and counted among her ancestors the hero 
Wallace and the poetess Hannah More. At the age of 
eight she experienced a kind of juvenile annunciation, 
hearing heavenly voices calling her; nevertheless, she 
soon absorbed much earthly lore in natural philosophy, 
logic, moral science, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. How- 
ever, after her discovery of Christian Science most of 
her knowledge “ vanished like a dream.” Her first 
conscious reaction was against her father’s relentless 
theology and the horrible decree of predestination, but 
the “ emergence into light ” did not come until there 
appeared on the scene the magnetic Doctor Quimby. 
Then the cure of an injury that neither medicine nor 
surgery could reach was the “ falling apple” that led 
her to the discovery how to be well herself, and how to 
make others so—the great discovery, the scientific 
certainty that all causation was mind, and every effect 
a mental phenomenon. After this cure the prophetess 
withdrew from society for about three years, to ponder 
her mission, to search the Scriptures, to found the 
Science of Mind, in a word, Christian Science. 
The physical side of this research, the authoress de- 
clares, was aided by hints from homeopathy, sustaining 





*This chapter, originally published in The Cambridge History 
of American Literature, was suppressed under Christian Science 
influences. See chapter “ Suppression,” pp. 220-224 of this volume. 


12 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


her conclusion that mental belief, instead of the drug, 
governs the action of material medicine; the drug dis- 
appears in the higher attenuations of homeopathy, and 
matter is thereby rarefied to its fatal essence, mortal 
mind; but immortal mind, the curative principle, re- 
mains, and is found to be even more active. With 
these fundamental postulates, Mrs. Eddy, in 1870, 
copyrighted her first publication on spiritual, scientific 
mind-healing, entitled The Science of Mind, this little 
book being subsequently converted into the chapter en- 
titled “ Recapitulation” in the ‘‘ precious volume,” 
Science and Health. ‘The original treatise, the author’s 
eatly class-book, is unobtainable, but the summary 
chapter, revised “ after increased spiritual understand- 
ing,” gives “ absolute” Christian Science in the form 
of question and answer. Briefly, this chapter states 
that there is not more than one God or principle, whose 
manifestations are mind, never matter; soul, never 
sense; that man is the likeness of God, pure and 
eternal; that spirit, soul, is not confined in man, and 
never in matter. Furthermore, the scientific statement 
of being is that there is no life, truth, intelligence, or 
substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infi- 
nite manifestation, for God is All-in-All. Spirit is 
immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the 
real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. 
Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. 
Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual. . . . In 
fine, Divine Science explains the abstract statement 
that there is one Mind by the following self-evident 
proposition: If God, or good, is real, then evil, the 
unlikeness of God, is unreal. And evil can only seem 
to be by giving reality to the unreal. The children of 
God have but one Mind. How can good lapse into 


PERSONAL SOURCES 13 


evil, when God, the mind of man, never sins? . . . The 
answer is that Mind is one and all; all is Mind and 
Mind’s idea. 

Such is the smooth and easy account given by Mrs. 
Eddy herself, from her “ infant lispings ” to the time 
when “ Truth came through the person of a New 
England girl.” This was the “ great discovery ” simi- 
lar to that of Newton when he discovered the law of 
gravitation, of Copernicus when he mapped out the 
stellar system, and of Columbus when he “ gave freer 


breath to the globe,” in other words, the first purely ” 


metaphysical system of healing since Apostolic days, 
founded on a basis so “ hopelessly original” that all 
other systems of mental healing are plagiarisms. 


These statements are accepted by the devout at their .,” 


face value. The critic would turn the tables and con- 
sider this recent form of clinical Christianity to be a 
series of plagiarisms, in short, a system compounded 
from the esoteric religion, the occult medicine, and the 
bizarre metaphysics of the day. So instead of a hall of 
fame containing Newton, Copernicus, Columbus, and 
Mary Baker Eddy one would be tempted to substitute 


an obsolete set of waxworks—the Shaker seeress, | 


Mother Ann Lee, the Portland mesmerist Quimby, and 
transcendentalism’s ‘‘tedious archangel” Bronson 
Alcott. These three personages form the three clues 
suppressed in the orthodox account of the founder of 
Christian Science. Like her book knowledge, they 
have evidently “ vanished like a dream.” 


It is known, however, that in her girlhood Mary” 


Baker lived near the Shaker community of East Can- | 


terbury, New Hampshire. The canon of this peculiar 


sect was entitled The Holy, Sacred and Divine Roll 
and Book of the United Society of Believers, This | 


14 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


manual of the “ Church of Jesus Christ and Mother 
Ann” claims that Shakerism is the only religious sys- 
tem that ‘teaches Science by Divine Revelation.” 
Between it and Science and Health there are striking 
resemblances. ‘There is a common denunciation of 
‘rationalism and materialism, a common symbolical in- 
terpretation of the Bible, a common prediction of the 
last dispensation of spiritual healing. There are also 
‘more particular parallels. To Ann Lee was given the 
“‘ endearing term of Mother ”; to Mrs. Eddy was given 
the same term. To Ann Lee the Woman clothed with 
the Sun was the “ divine spiritual intuition as repre- 
senting the Mother in Deity”; to Mrs. Eddy the 
Woman was the “spiritual idea or type of God’s 
Motherhood.” This might be called the notion of 
religious matriarchy. In the case of Shakerism it was 
a settled doctrine that the female had never been re- 
vealed, in her sacred order, before this dispensation; 
in the case of Eddyism the doctrine was a growth. At 
first it was expressed guardedly. In Retrospection and 
Introspection she who, as a child, had heard “ voices 
not our own,” declared: No person can take the 
individual place of the Virgin Mary; no person can 
compass or fulfil the individual mission of Jesus of 
Nazareth; no person can take the place of the author 
of Science and Health, “ the discoverer and founder of 
Christian Science.” The identification between divine 
and human is not yet made, but in her magnum opus 
Mrs. Eddy declares: God has been graciously prepar- 
ing me during many years for the reception of this final 
revelation of the absolute divine principle of “ scientific 
mental healing.” But the Key to the Scriptures con- 
tains the unfolding of this mystery. Like Mother 
Lee’s Key to the Apocalypse, Mother Eddy interprets, 


PERSONAL SOURCES 15 


in her own behalf, the great wonder in Heaven—a 
Woman clothed with the Sun—as the immaculate idea, 
represented first by man and “last by woman.” Such 
is the esoteric doctrine, to be spiritually understood. 
It is outwardly expressed in the stained glass window 
in the Mother Church in Boston, where the Woman in 
the Sun is conjoined with the Revelator’s “ little book,” 
or Science and Health. 

All this reminds one of the Prophet Joseph Smith, * 
whose official portrait is graced with a halo. And as 
the founder of Mormonism was a spiritual healer, so 
was the founder of Eddyism. Both had as a Scriptural 
basis the restoration of primitive “ gifts,” but in the 
case of Mary Baker there was more knowledge, the 
sorry knowledge of experience. ‘‘ When quite a child,” 
she narrates, “we adopted the Graham system for 
dyspepsia.” After her first marriage she tried in suc- © 
cession allopathy, homeopathy, hydropathy, electricity, 
spiritualism and mesmerism. In her Miscellaneous. 
Writings (1899) Mrs. Eddy gives the journal intime 
of her invalidism. We need not go into these various 
“isms of mortal mind ” except as to the first and last 
of the series. As to the Old School the matter was 
simple; allopathy was abandoned because of the “‘ per- 
petually egotistical sensibility. . . . We are an homeo- 
pathist because of our aversion to the dissecting-room,” 
As for mesmerism, the matter is complex. To Mrs. 
Eddy mesmerism, in the form of malicious animal 
magnetism, became personally a haunting fear, and 
doctrinally the evil principle of the universe... Never- 
theless it furnished, by a kind of indirection, the first 
clue to the “ great discovery ” of spiritual, scientific 
mind-healing. It is to be noted that animal magnetism, 
which, despite its extravagances, contained hints of 


een a ee 


16 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


psycho-therapeutics, was unfortunately kicked out of 
the front door by Benjamin Franklin, who headed the 
French commission to investigate the claims of Mes- 
mer. It came in by the back door, a generation later, 
in such books as Poyen’s Progress of Animal Magnet- 
ism in New England, Durant’s Exposition, or a New 
Theory of Animal Magnetism with a Key to the Mys- 
teries, and Roger’s Philosophy of Mysterious Agents. 
From works such as these—and there were dozens of 
them—and from mesmerisers who travelled the back 
country Mary Baker was enabled to take her next 
step in “ metaphysical” healing. The whole tribe of 
animal magnetisers and electro-biologists she called 
necromancers of Egypt striving to emulate the wonders 
wrought by Moses. But there was one exception, the 
magnetic Doctor Quimby, of Portland, Maine, whose 
manuscripts, brought to light by a schismatic Eddyite, 
were variously entitled Science of Health, Science of 
Health and Happiness, and Christian Science. ‘The 
issue between Quimbyism and Eddyism, as to which 
was the original font of wisdom, is really a false issue, 
because both “ discoverers”? contracted their meta- 
physical measles from a common source, the magnet- 
ism of the mesmerists and the gifts of healing of the 


- Restorationists. Confidence in miraculous mental 
_ healing, as in the case of the Mormons, had remained 


endemic, and neither the Maine healer nor the New 


'. Hampshire seeress had any monopoly of the doctrine. 


Nevertheless, the particular application of this doc- 


_ trine, in the form of removing erroneous beliefs, was 
due to Quimby. Mrs. Eddy herself wrote, in 1862, 


that she could see dimly at first the great principle 
which underlies his faith and works: ‘“ The truth which 
he establishes in the patient cures him, and the body, 


PERSONAL SOURCES Ly 


which is full of light, is no longer in disease.” All this 
disposes of the later statement that Mrs. Eddy was 
the pioneer in Christian Science, standing alone in this 
conflict. And that claim is incidentally weakened by 
her own Lines on the Death of Dr. P. P. Quimby, Who 
Healed with the Truth that Christ Taught in Contra- 
distinction to all Isms. 

The year of the demise of the first “ scientist,” in 
1866, was the year in which Mrs. Eddy says she with- 
drew from society to found the Science of Mind. So far © 
_ Christian Science was in an embryonic stage, an un- 
formed mass of illiterate speculation. To be a success 
it needed a backbone, and this, curiously enough, was 
furnished by the great “ spinal” philosopher, Bronson 
Alcott. Mrs. Eddy gives no details as to her years of | 
retirement, but in one of these years, when she so- 
journed in Lynn, Alcott, the sower of ‘“ transcendental — 
wild oats,” actually addressed her class of “‘ scientific 
physicians.” Alcott, the vegetarian and visionary, who 
lived on “ aspiring” plants and deplored the use of | 
drugs, would naturally be in sympathy with any new © 
system of healing the sick without medicine. Eddyism, 
of course, had no apparent effect on the Fruitlands 
experiment, but what the seeress got from the mystic 
is not difficult to discover. After sampling all sorts of 
remedies she now tried Alcott’s, or at least became 
familiar with the elements of that exotic Neo-Platonic 
compound. Alcott’s Tablets was published in 1868, 
and the The Science of Mind in 1870, and between the 
two works there are fatal correspondences. Ellery 
Channing complained of being driven into dejection by 
all thoughts ejected from the Alcottian syringe, but an 
opposite effect was evidently exerted upon the veiled 
prophetess of Lynn. Alcott’s speculative system has 


18 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


been summarised by a competent philosopher as fol- 
lows: His first principle is Person, absolute seli- 
reflection, an immaterial, self-moving, self-making, 
pure act. This self-determined Being is what we call 
God, Spirit, or Idea. He creates what is most like 
himself, hence self-determined or creative beings. 
They differ from the Absolute person only in degree; 
they are pure souls. These pure souls may lapse or 
may not. They have the possibility of lapse, since they 
are free. Those that lapse create thereby bodies for 
themselves. This scheme recognises Person as the only 
substantial, and all else as dependent thereon. This is 
the opposite of the materialistic scheme. It represents 
all creation as through thought. The total thought of 
God thinks the total, and thus Himself is His own 
object, or Pure Spirit. The Divine, harmonious, pure, 
unlapsed soul comprehends or seizes all in the One or 
Person, while the lapsed soul, in the form of sense and 
understanding, creates spectres. 

It remains to compare all this with the chapter in 
Science and Health called “ Recapitulation,”’ which is 
described as taken from the first edition of the author’s 
- class book, copyrighted in 1870. Here are the funda- 
_ mentals, given in the form of question and answer: 

What is God? God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, 
infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle. What are Spir- 
its? ‘The spirituality of the universe is the only fact 
of creation. Man is the likeness of God, pure and 
eternal. How can good lapse inio evil? Man is made 
in the likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. 
What is Substance? Spirit, the synonym of Mind, 
Soul, or God, is the only real Substance. The Spirit- 
ual universe, including individual man, is a compound 
idea, reflecting the divine Substance of Spirit. We 


PERSONAL SOURCES 19 


begin with Mind which must be understood through 
the idea which expresses it. All reality is in God and 
His creation. That which He creates is good and He 
makes all that is made. Through spiritual sense only 
man comprehends Deity. Material sense never helps 
mortals to understand God, Spirit. Evil is but an 
illusion and it has no real basis. Evil is a false belief. 
The only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful 
fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, 
until God strips off their disguise. 

Such is the sum and substance of Eddyism, “ a first 
hand revelation,” in which “ unfathomable mind has 
expressed itself.” Mrs. Eddy’s literary adviser, who 
emended the later editions of Science and Health, 
called this a crude revival of Gnostic doctrine. It is 
assuredly that, for the ancient sect claimed a peculiar 
knowledge, and sought to remove the real existence of 
evil as a creation of Deity, contending that it had no 
absolute existence, but only a relative one to finite 
consciousness. For the spread of this aberrant Neo- 
Platonism through Eddyite channels Alcott is indi- 
rectly responsible. He appeared on the scene at the 
precise moment when Mrs. Eddy was attempting to 
understand spirit “ through spiritual sense.” So she 
lets the cat out of the bag when she declares that after 
her sacred discovery she affixed the name ‘“ Science” 
to Christianity, the name “error ” to corporeal sense, 
and the name “ Substance ” to Mind. 

One logical difficulty remained, and for it the two 
had a like solution: If the Absolute Idea is perfect, 
then the most perfect created beings were created first, 
instead of last. But this is not the Mosaic order, hence 
Alcott corrects the sacred account in the last of the 
Tablets, entitled “‘ Genesis.”” In this, as he once fore- 


20 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


shadowed it in The Dial, he assumes man to be nature’s 
ancestor, and nature man’s ruins. But while Alcott, 
relying upon his library of mystic writers, attributes 
this solution to Boehme, “the subtilest thinker on 
Genesis since Moses,” Mrs. Eddy, asserting that “‘ God 
has set His signet upon Science,” holds that the Genesis 
account must be “‘ disregarded.”’ As she argues in her 
Key to Genesis: If matter is first, it cannot produce 
mind, therefore inspired writers interpret the word 
spiritually, while the ordinary historian interprets it 
literally. Now the translators of this record of scien-- 
tific creation.entertained a false sense of being; they 
believed in the existence of matter, its propagation, and 
power. Consequently we are forced to ‘an hypo- 
thetical reversal.” . . . Thus the creations of matter 
arise from mist or false claim, or from mystification, 
and not from the firmament, or understanding, which 
God erects between the true and false. In error every- 
thing comes from beneath, not from above. All is ma- 
terial myth instead of the reflection of Spirit. 

Here ends Science and Health with Key to the Scrip- 
tures. As this key is not yet a master key, there was 
added a Glossary containing the “ metaphysical ” in- 
terpretation of Bible terms, giving their spiritual sense, 
which is also their original meaning. Thus the word 
Adam, derived from the Latin demens, means belief in 
original sin; Babel means self-destroying error; Devil, 
evil, belief in sin, and animal magnetism; arth, a 
sphere, type of eternity and immortality which are 
likewise without beginning and end; Exzphrates, divine 
science, encompassing the universe and man. 

Judging from these dark sayings and from Mrs. 
Eddy’s fondness for the aphoristic style, Christian 
Science is seen to be an extreme, a perverted form of 


PERSONAL SOURCES 21 


New England transcendentalism. Indeed, its votaries 
might be added to the Emersonian list of madmen, 
madwomen, Muggletonians, and Come-outers.,, And 
Mrs. Eddy herself resembled the heroine of The Blithe- 
dale Romance: ‘‘ She was self-deceived by her own 
phantasms; she possessed the dangerous vertigo na- 
ture.” Then, too, Mrs. Eddy’s point of view resembled 
that of Margaret Fuller in her “ search after the unity 
of things and the divine harmony,” which began with 
God as Spirit, life, so full as to create and love eter- 
nally, and ended with ‘‘ dynamic forces destroying sin.” 

The reasons given for the success of transcendental- 
ism apply most aptly to Eddyism. It possessed all the 
chief qualifications for a gospel; its cardinal facts were 
few and manageable; its data were secluded in the 
recesses of consciousness out of the reach of scientific 
investigation, remote from the gaze of vulgar scepti- 
cism; esoteric, having about them the charm of a 
sacred privacy, on which common sense and the critical 
understanding might not intrude; its oracles proceeded 
from a shrine, and were delivered by a priest or priest- 
ess who came forth from an interior holy of holies to 
utter them, and thus were invested with an air of 
authority which belongs to exclusive and privileged 
truths revealed to minds of a contemplative cast. To 
the pure transcendentalist the soul when awakened 
utters oracles of wisdom, prophesies, discourses grandly 
of God and divine things, performs wonders of healing 
on sick bodies and wandering minds." 

The course of Mrs. Eddy’s career was that of a tran- 
scendental priestess. “‘ It was not uncommon,” she 
says, “in my own church for the sick to be healed by 





10. B. Frothingham, Transcendentalism in New England, p.. 
303, 1876, 


22 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


my sermon. Many pale cripples went into the church 
leaning on crutches, who went out carrying them on 
their shoulders.” 

A disciple tells how, in a public meeting, the audience 
rose after Mrs. Eddy’s address; the people were in the 
presence of the woman whose book had healed them, 
and they knew it; they came in crowds to her side 
begging for one handclasp; a mother held her sick baby 
up; others touched the dress of their benefactor; a 
palsied woman held up her shaking hands and went 
away healed. By 1888 the deification of the author of 
Science and Health was an accomplished fact among 
her followers. The little gift book, Christ and Christ- 
mas objectifies this belief, for the author of ‘‘ Divine 
Science ” is represented with a halo about her head. 
But alongside of this apotheosis should be put its oppo- 
site, the doctrine of demonology. The history of this 
doctrine to present-day Eddyites belongs to what their 
leader would call “‘ the etcetera of ignorance.” On the 
advice of her literary censor the original chapter on 
“unbridled mind-manipulation’”’ was dropped after 
the third edition of Science and Health, but the belief 
persisted. At first the seeress had declared that mes- 
merism, as the transference of thought to base ends, 
was mental malpractice, the scourge of men, a means 
whereby an evil mind could destroy a hated neighbour’s 
flocks and herds. This early account, because of its 
personalities, was omitted as libelous, but that did not 
prevent Mrs. Eddy from bringing suit against a recalci- 
trant student for practising witchcraft—and that in 
the village of Salem. 

With this episode the account may be closed. 
Eddyism, like Mormonism, appears to be a series of 
plagiarisms, mingled with strange anachronisms. One 


PERSONAL SOURCES 23 


generation later than the Latter-day Saints, it falls 
within the penumbra of transcendentalism, but it is 
transcendentalism gone mad. It is not like the obverse 
of a clear-cut medal, but resembles the tangled threads 
on the wrong side of a piece of tapestry. The same 
colours, the same materials are used, but the pattern is 
awry. It was the part of Mrs. Eddy’s literary adviser 
to untangle these threads, but no cosmos could be made 
out of such a chaos. Almost any page of Science and 
Health contains the cardinal principles, but it needs 
more than the added rubrics to clear up the confusion. 
Whatever system there may be is a distorted reflection 
of a better mind, that of Alcott. Like the author of 
the Orphic Sayings, Mrs. Eddy is a theologic idealist, 
intoxicated with “the One.” But unlike Alcott, she 
suffers from a species of persecutory hallucination. 
The Erinyes of evil pursue her, and the problem of sin 
is a haunting dread. So her system lapses into an 
ill-balanced dualism,—on the one side the Christian 
God, on the other “evil, devil, malicious animal 
magnetism.” 


II 
THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 


“The Religion of Christ is shown in the progress of 
Christian Science.’—P, P. Quimsy, 1863. 


“In the nineteenth century I have fixed for all time the 
word Sctence to Christianity.’—Mrs. Eppy, 1875. 


HEN a hard-drinking Irishman was told by 
his doctor that he was dying of water on the 


chest all he asked was this: “ Where in the 
wurrld did it come from?” This is our own query in 
regard to Christian Science and now it is answered, at 
least as regards what Mrs. Eddy was wont to call her 
“precious discovery, hopelessly original, the seventh 
wonder of the world.” The complete Quimby manu- 
scripts, which the Christian Scientists have so long 
denied as non-existent, now see the light of the printed 
page.’ Their appearance is opportune, especially at a 
time when the authorities are publishing full-page ad- 
vertisements as to the absolute uniqueness of Eddyism. 
These documents show that the Eddyite therapeutic 
system was not original with its alleged author, but 
that another source lay back of it. This was the mind 
of Phineas P. Quimby, the Portland healer, who not 
only coined the phrase ‘‘ Christian Science,” but con- 
tinually harped on the “ essential”? Eddyite doctrine 





*The Quimby Manuscripts, selected by H. W. Dresser, New 
York, 1921. 


24 


THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 25 


that disease is merely an error of mortal mind,— 
“‘ Smallpox and kinepox are both ideas,” as he put it. 
Thus we can show, and show conclusively, that the 
therapeutic hints were taken directly from Dr. Quimby, 
the Portland practitioner. Maine was the Eddyite 
medical Mecca, and the efforts of a broken invalid to 
reach that spot are here completely described. Others 
have partially quoted these documents. As early as 
1882 the ex-Eddyite student, Arens, showed that the 
“revelations”? were only Quimbyisms. While, in 
1907, Miss Milmine published her sensational exposure 
of the life and works of Mary Baker Glover Eddy, 
only to have the plates of the book destroyed by the 
publishers. This happened presumably under Chris- 
tian Science pressure, as was actually the case with the 
Arens article. So, for twenty-five years, only a part of 
the truth could be reached. Practically the whole 
truth is now before us, for the time being at least. 
Therefore let us turn to the documents. These include 
not only the letters of Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Patter- 
son) to her “ revered master,’ Quimby, but Quimby’s 
own manuscripts. From the latter we select Questions 
and Answers and Christ or Science, since they formed 
the basis of that chapter of “‘ fundamental ” Eddyism 
entitled Recapitulation, which, in turn, was inflated 
into Science and Health. ‘The letters of Mrs. Patter- 
son are both pathetic and primitive. As will be re- 
called, she had tried all sorts of cures from allopathy 
and homeopathy, through hydropathy and electricity, 
to spiritualism and mesmerism. So, on May 29, 1862, 
she began her first letter to Dr. Quimby thus: ‘‘ Dear 
Sir: I address you briefly stating my case. I have been 
sick six years with spinal inflammation, and its train 
of suffering—gastric and bilious.” 


26 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


As we would probably be restrained from quoting 
in extenso we can give only brief and broken extracts 
from these epistles, which have already been with- 
drawn from circulation, leaving the public ignorant of 
their existence. On May 29, 1862, the patient is 
suffering from gastric troubles. By January 12, 1863, 
something supernatural has happened. So she writes 
to Quimby: “ Your angel-visit has removed all my 
stomach-pain.”” This was the first instance of cures 
at a distance, or what came to be called absent 
treatment. As the patient puts it on the follow- 
ing September 14, “I would like to have you in 
your Omnipresence visit me at eight o’clock this eve, 
if convenient.” But besides omnipresence there is 
almost a real presence. On April 10, 1864, dear Dr. 
Quimby is told: ‘‘ Last Wednesday at 12 m. I saw you 
in this parlor where I am now writing. You wore a 
hat and dress-coat.” 

Absent treatment, omnipresence, real presence,— 
these are the positive links in a lengthening chain. 
But the chain is threatened by a break. Absent treat- 
ment has not only its positive but its negative aspect. 
On April 24, 1864, Quimby is asked: “ Please attend 
to my case when you get this; dyspepsia and constipa- 
tion; two bugbears that Miss Jarvis has just got rid of 
and saddled on to me.” ‘This cryptic complaint, the 
inadvertent transfer of symptoms, is explained in the 
succeeding letter, which declares: ‘As I. took Miss 
Jarvis’ heat I found in it her fears, and those made 
me frightened, but my heat contained the first of my 
ideas, that was, the old spinal complaint.” 

Absent treatment in its negative form is now rein- 
forced and made a doctrine of dread. The letter just 
quoted continues: “ While I was weakened by my 


THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 27 


sufferings the terror of this home and people took fast 
hold of me, and the morning after, I wrote you.” Here 
is the germ of what, later, became in completed Eddy- 
ism the evil principle of the universe—the belief in 
malicious animal magnetism. Out of these letters, by 
this time suppressed, the complete early blueprint of 
the later structure may be traced, from absent treat- 
ment to M.A.M. They also give a complete history of a 
chronic invalid, a history which cannot be denied, for 
we have the letters in facsimile. But all this is only 
preparatory to the question of literary sources, espe- 
cially as to that curative doctrine which apparently 
dragged a woman who described herself as a “ hopeless 
invalid ” out of the slough of despond. Letter No. 12, 
last quoted from, gives the acknowledgment of the 
positive contribution. After the hallucinatory vision 
of the Portland healer, Mrs. Patterson says, “I am up 
and about today, z e., by the help of the Lord 
(Quimby).” ? 

The question of plagiarism is like a question of 
priority in patents. It,simply resolves itself into this: 
Here are two models; which was the first, exhibit A or 
exhibit B? If Eddyism can be shown to contain the 
essential features of Quimbyism and Quimby preceded 
Mrs. Eddy in this therapeutic system, then the latter 
infringed on the rights of the former. Dresser im- 
plies as much in two statements, though he declares 
that his book is not controversial but documentary. 
The first statement is that without Quimbyism there 
would have been no Eddyism; the other is that the first 
volume of Quimby’s writings, entitled Christ or 
Science, was sometimes loaned to students, “ including 





2 Also quoted in Milmine, p. 64, 


28 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


the one who made liberal use of their contents.” The 
‘one ” here referred to is, of course, Mrs. Eddy, and 
this liberal use can be shown by putting in conjunction 
quotations from Quimby’s copy-book and quotations 
from Mrs. Eddy’s letters. By suppressing the latter 
(exhibit B) this comparison is apparently rendered 
ineffective, but another way remains. Mrs. Eddy’s 
letters contain only hints of the Quimby doctrine, such 
as absent treatment, omnipresence, the chemicalisation 
of thought. The first edition of Science and Health 
contains the complete doctrine elaborated ad nauseam. 
Hitherto we have had only brief excerpts from Quim- 
by’s Christ or Science. Now the entire work lies 
before us, and it is easy to see that “ absolute Chris- 
tian Science,” as a system of healing, is little but the 
Quimby system. 

Thirteen years before the first edition of Science and 
Health, Quimby wrote a series of ‘‘ Questions and An- 
swers,” in which anyone may recognise the regular - 
Christian Science glossary. Take these examples: 


“Question 1: You must have a feeling of repugnance 
towards certain patients. How do you overcome it and 
how can I do the same? Answer: My wisdom sees their 
condition, feels their woes and comes to the rescue, but to 
get them from their enemy is often an arduous task. . . . 
Question 3: Our spiritual senses are often more acute 
than our natural ones. What is the difference? What do 
you call the spirit-world? Answer: The natural senses 
are under the law governed by the knowledge of the 
natural world, subject to all the penalties and punishments 
man can invent. . . . The spiritual senses have their spir- 
itual world, but the communication is not admitted by the 
natural man except as a mystery. . . . Question 6: If I 
understood how disease originates in the mind and fully 


THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 29 


believe it, why cannot I cure disease? Answer: If you 
understand how disease originates, then you stand to the 
patient as a lawyer does to a criminal who is to be tried 
for a crime committed against a law that he is ignorant 
of breaking, and the evidence is his own confession. You 
know that he is innocent, but you can get no evidence, only 
by cross-questioning the evidence against him. Disease 
has its attending counsel as well as truth or health, and to 
cure the sick is to show to the judge or their own counsel 
that the witness lies. This you have to show from the 
‘witness’ own story, then you get the case. The error is 
on one side and you on the other, and out of the mouth 
of the sick comes the witness.” ® 


There lies before me a presentation copy of the first 
edition of Science and Health given by Mrs. Eddy 
(then Mrs. Glover) to a certain library. From this I 
take a series of quotations similar, not only in lan- 
guage, but also in thought to Quimby’s answer to the 
questions put to him by his patients. In order to show 
that Mrs. Eddy’s volume is not, as she says, ‘‘ hope- 
lessly original,’’ one has only to make a comparison of 
the two documents. Quimby’s manual for the use of 
his students was more or less practical, and written in 
a plain style. With it we may compare the original of 
Science and Health, where the same notions are han- 
dled in a highly fanciful way. For instance, as to 
repugnance, Mrs. Eddy says, ‘‘ We have observed with 
our students, and with the sick, a constant recurrence 
of morbid symptoms, moral and physical, till the con- 
flict is decided on the part of Truth. . .. Patients 
with certain mentalities, or students with wrong tenden- 
cies and habits, are more difficult to heal or to teach 





> Quimby Manuscripts, Chap. XIII. 


30 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


than others differently constituted.” As to the “ spir- 
itual senses ” being more acute than our natural ones, 
Mrs. Eddy explains that ‘ Mind has senses sharper 
than body,” and in addition declares, “‘ There is more 
Christianity in seeing, hearing, etc., spiritually than 
materially, more science and more God in spiritual 
sense than in personal sense.” 

Similarities such as these could be repeated at great 
length, but a more fatal correspondence occurs when 
Mrs. Eddy borrows, expands, and renders grotesque 
the comparison made by Quimby in regard to what 
he considered the trial of Disease in the court of 
Christian Science. Here Quimby’s pupil writes as 
follows: 


“We will suppose a case on the docket of mind, in 
which a man is charged with liver-complaint. The patient 
feels ill, ruminates, and the trial commences. Personal 
sense is plaintiff ; Man, the defendant; Belief, the attorney 
for Personal Sense; Mortal Minds, the jury, and Materia 
Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Mesmerism, and Medium- 
ship the judges. The evidence for the plaintiff being 
called, testifies: ‘I am Laws of Health, was present on 
the nights the prisoner (patient) watched with the sick, 
and, although I have the superintendence of human 
affairs, was personally abused on those occasions, and in- 
formed I must remain silent until called for at this trial, 
when I should be allowed to testify in the case.’ . . . The 
next witness testified, ‘I am Nerves. . . . I was witness 
to the crime of liver-complaint; knew the prisoner would 
commit it, for I convey messages from my residence in 
matter, alias brains, to the body, and am on intimate terms 
with Error, a personal acquaintance of the prisoner, but a 
foe to Man.’ . . . Judge: ‘ Did Man, by doing good to his 
neighbour, possess himself of disease, transgress your laws 


THE PROBLEM OF PLAGIARISM 31 


and merit punishment?’ ‘He did.’ ... The deposition 
of Bowels was then read, they being too inactive to be 
present.” * 


In making these comparisons we infer that there is 
a strong case for plagiarism. There is, of course, the 
alternative possibility of two great minds working 
upon parallel lines. But when one mind follows an- 
other, both in general doctrines and in particular de- 
‘tails, mere coincidence becomes a strained explanation. 
Mrs. Eddy by ten years of recension and alteration of 
the Quimby Manuscripts sought to cover up her tracks, 
but the small, neglected resemblances give her away. 
The Trial of Disease is one case; others are found in 
out-of-the-way references all the way from the double 
nature of Jesus the Christ to the strange case of Casper 
Hauser, “‘ the infant boy incarcerated in a dungeon,” 
with ‘less intelligence than a mouse.” ® 

We have already noticed the similarity between 
Quimby’s Answers to Fifteen Questions and the Ques- 
tions and Answers given in the chapter of Science and 
Health entitled “‘ Recapitulation.”” This chapter, says 
Mrs. Eddy, is from our class book, first edition, 1870. 
Upon scrutiny the latter document divides itself into 
two parts, the first concerning metaphysics, which will 
be accounted for later, the last concerning therapeutics, 
or healing, which contains the same questions and 
largely the same answers as those given by Quimby. 





* Science and Health (first ed.), Chap. VIII, Healing the Sick. 
* Science and Health (first ed.), p. 357. Compare Dresser, 
Quimby Manuscripts, p. 430. 


iil 
QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 


“<The best spirer of hope ts the best physician, an 
aphorism which contains the germ of the Freudian theory 
of psychoanalysis—to ‘ minister to the mind diseased’ by 
removing the splinter of worry or misery from the brain, 
in order to restore the patient to a cheerful state of mental 
equilibrium. This fact has been utilised by all ‘ nature 
healers’ and faith-curists with varying degrees of success, 
and tt is the secret of all charlatans, from Apollonius of 
Tyana, Valentine Greatrakes, Cagliostro, ‘Spot’ Ward, 
Joanna Stevens, Mesmer, James Graham, John St. John 
Long, and the Zouave Jacob down to the days of Dowte- 
ism and Eddyism.’—History oF MEDICINE (Garrison). 


(,) css may justly be called the discoverer of 


Christian Science from the therapeutic side. 

The internal evidence, here and elsewhere, 
shows striking similarities and the external evidence is 
conclusive. We now know that Mrs. Eddy got her 
copy of Questions and Answers in Portland, in 1862, 
that is, she was free to make her own copy, as there 
were three or more copies in regular circulation among 
the patients and J. A. Dresser loaned her his copy of 
Volume I of the manuscripts.* 

Then, too, we have the testimony of the only sur- 
viving assistant of Mrs. Eddy in getting out the 
first edition of Science and Health. As Daniel H. 
Spofford has recently said: “The Quimby Manu- 





1 Letter of Mr. H. W. Dresser to the Writer, December 13, 1921. 
32 


QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 33 


scripts. . . . These were what Mrs. Glover started 
in business with.” ? 

Despite all the evidence as to Mrs. Eddy’s pickings 
from Quimby, the former grew bolder in her disclaim- 
ers as time went on. She also put the date of her 
discovery further and further back. As Milmine has 
pointed out, Mrs. Eddy assigned no less than three 
dates for her initial ‘‘ revelation,” these dates being 
1866, 1853, and 1844. The strongest evidence of this 
double dealing is found in her condescending preface 
to the eighth edition of Science and Health: 


“The old gentleman to whom we have referred had 
some very advanced views on healing,” she says, “ but he 
was not avowedly religious, neither scholarly. We ex- 
changed thoughts on the subject of healing the sick. I 
restored some patients of his that he failed to heal, and 
left in his possession some manuscripts containing cor- 
rections of his desultory pennings. .. . The only manu- 
script that we ever held of his, longer than to correct it, 
was one of perhaps a dozen pages, most of which we had 
composed. . . . We refer to these facts simply to re- 
fute the calumnies and false claims of our enemies, that 
we are preferring dishonest claims to the discovery and 
founding at this period of ‘ Metaphysical Healing or 
~ Christian Science. . . . Since our discovery, in 1866, 
of the divine science of Christian Healing we have la- 
_ boured with tongue and pen to found this system,” ® 


The next disclaimer arose from an article written by 





?Mr. Spofford to the Writer, October 11, 1921. As to Mrs. 
Eddy’s early opinion of Mr. Spofford, compare her letter of Feb- 
ruary 24, 1875, to a cousin. “‘ Dear Cousin. ...I1 was sorry to 
hear that your sister was not well. Dr. Spofford is doing cures 
more difficult than hers constantly.” (Quoted in The New York 
American, Feb. 26, 1911.) 

°1884. Preface, p. 4. 


384 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Mr. J. A. Dresser, in the Boston Post of 1883. Four 
years later Mrs. Eddy furnished some highly charac- 
teristic reasons for the alleged borrowing. As she 
could express herself in her own official organ her style 
is somewhat sarcastic: 


“Did I write those articles in Mr. Dresser’s pamphlet 
purporting to be mine?” she asks. “I might have written 
them, twenty or thirty years ago, for I was under the 
mesmeric treatment of Dr. Quimby from 1862 until his 
death, in 1865.4 He was illiterate, and I knew nothing 
then of the science of Mind-healing. . . . After the 
death of this so-called originator of Mind-healing, it re- 
quired ten years of nameless experience for me to reach 
the standpoint of my first edition of Science and Health. 

. It was after the death of Mr. Quimby, when I was 
apparently at the door of death, that I made this discov- 
ery, in 1866. After that it took about ten years of hard 
work for me to reach the standard of my first edition of 
Science and Health, published in 1875. . . . If ever 
Mr. Quimby’s ominous Manuscripts are brought to light, 
it will be when my copyrights have expired.” ® 


Here are several different accounts. All of them 
contradict the two earliest given dates of the grand 
“discovery.” Then, too, the charge that Quimby was 
unscholarly and illiterate comes rather curiously from 
an author who “ reached the standard ” of phrases like 
these: ‘‘ God is a phenomena ”’; “a bacilli was gnaw- 
ing at the heart of the metropolis”; “As the vox 
populi observed the success of this Christian system 
of healing . . . they became deeply interested in it.” 

All this was more or less a case of the pot calling 





* Quimby died Jan. 16, 1866. 
5 Christian Science Journal, 5.109-115. 


QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 35 


the kettle black. Quimby did write some incoherent 
stuff, but nothing to equal the following instructions 
given to Mr. Horace T. Wentworth for treating the 
sick. A passage from this manuscript which follows 
the original spelling and punctuation is as follows: 


“What is heat and chills we answer nothing but an 
effect produced upon the body by images of disease before 
the spiritual senses wherefore you must say of heat and 
chill you are not hot you are not cold you are only the 
effect of fright there is no such thing as heat and cold if 
there were you would not grow hot when angry or abashed 
or frightened and the temperature around not changed in 
the least.” 


The Quimby Manuscripts were certainly ‘“ omi- 
nous,” and they furnish a further clue to the mesmeric 
influence referred to. What they show is the strange 
mentality of a teacher who handed on his peculiar doc- 
trines to his patient. Eddyism was not published to 
the world before 1875, but before 1856 Quimby’s early 
writings disclosed a curious kinship, such as the bizarre 
beliefs that the inward man governs the outward man; 
that the vapour around persons contains the identity of 
the person; and that there is an unconscious effect of 
persons on each other. —e 

By this “ unconscious effect ” one can prove or ae 
prove almost anything. Mrs. Eddy employed it to 
explain matters as far apart as her inadvertent repro- 
duction of Quimby’s doctrines and her belief in ma- 
licious animal magnetism. Here, then, is the parallel 
mental development between master and pupil, the evo- 
lution of Quimby’s thought, through the mesmeric 
period to “ the emergence into light.” That light is to 
us darkness, for in the crucial transition Quimby passes 


86 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


from the natural to the preternatural. But while dis- 
covery of “principle” is to us negative, the discovery 
of certain hypnotic phenomena is positive. Without a 
scientific knowledge of these phenomena—and they are 
most remarkable—the Portland practitioner neverthe- 
less found them out for himself. They are put in a 
fantastic and whimsical way, but beneath his descrip- 
tion there lie some grains of truth. Under so-called 
mesmerising the senses are rendered more acute. The 
eye can see more clearly, the ear hear more acutely, 
and even the sense of smell and touch are rendered 
sharper. But to say that “spirit has senses more 
acute ” than the understanding is to beg the question. 
The psychologist grants hyperesthesia—visual, audi- 
tory, tactual, etc-—that is, experiment shows that, 
within certain limits, subjects in the light hypnotic 
state can read print at an unusual distance, hear sounds 
almost inaudible to others, and detect odours with 
nearly the precision of a hunting-dog. But again to 
say that in the latter case the spirit can “ scent spirit- 
ual atmospheres ” is confusing the issue. There is no 
such thing as the aura,—as an effluvium of an “ astral ” 
body. Some impatient punster has declared that one 
might better speak of a jack-astral body. There is 
hyperesthesia—or heightened sense perception; but 
this heightening is within limits. | 

For example, the hypnotised patient can read a book 
held at an unaccustomed distance; but beyond a cer- 
tain limit, depending on the size of the type, no words 
can be distinguished. And the Frenchman who offered 
a prize for a mesmerist who could read in the dark 
never lost his money. The same holds true in regard 
to the other senses; they all have a limen or threshold 
beyond which the human senses—even in the hypnotic 


QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 37 


state—cannot pass. But the supernaturalist takes no 
heed of this. To him the critic is a mere king Canute 
who attempts but vainly to set limits to the waves of 
thought. 

Quimby is not fettered by such considerations. He 
would call spirits from the vasty deep. He passes 
through the mesmeric period and passes beyond. Not 
only has the spirit senses sharper than the understand- 
ing; not only can it perceive what is hidden to mortal 
mind, but, reversing the more or less passive process of 
perception, it can be an active center. ‘“‘ Man,” says 
the master, “has the power to create ideas and to 
make them so dense that they may be rendered visible 
to others.” © This power of projection manifests itself 
in conveying messages to others; in sending out warn- 
ings, and even in making “ angel visits.” In short, the 
soul is a telepathic projecting lantern which dispatches 
express images of itself to those especially favoured. 

When the doubter asks how it is done, there is no 
answer. It is a matter of faith and not of reason, of 
doctrine and not of demonstration. And just as later 
the “ belief ”’ comes to be the “ cure,” so here there is 
the preliminary belief that the disciple sees the master 
in his “‘ omnipresence.” But the critic is not converted 
to this way of thinking by mere statement. Take the 
case of the penetrating gaze of the comic characters 
portrayed in the newspaper cartoons. The artist often 
represents the glances between them by dotted lines. 
Rub out the dotted lines, and what remains? Nothing. 
So here. One can talk about telepathy and clairvoy- 
ance at a distance, about thought transference and the 
power of the soul to project itself through space, but 





®Ouimby Manuscripts, p. 46. 


38 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


rub out the words and there remains nothing. Yet out 
of words theories can be built and the ingenuity of 
Quimby, the spiritual healer, is equal to the inventive- 
ness of Quimby, the clock maker. We hold that 
Quimby was a man of parts, but that some of the parts 
were missing. Wonderful speculative machines can be 
built out of magic words and occult phrases, but the 
connection between these words and phrases is where 
the puzzle comes. My mind can move my finger; but 
my mind cannot move my pen without the intervention 
of my finger 

So with this fundamental proposition of the influence 
of mind on mind without any medium. Quimby was 
clever enough to see that there was a missing link, and 
that some kind of metaphysical ratchet was needed to 
make the wheels engage. So he invents, or rather pro- 
pounds, the theory of mind as a highly rarefied form 
of matter. To his latest interpreter, who belongs to 
the purely immaterialistic school, all this is a stum- 
bling-block. He declares that Quimby fails here; that 
his theory is dark and obscure. It is nothing of the 
kind. It is an old belief brought up to date. The 
English philosopher Hobbes, in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, declared that he did not deal with spirits, angelic 
or divine, since “a spirit is a physical body refined 
enough to escape the senses.”” Quimby holds the same 
belief as to spirit being essentially an attenuated form 
of matter, but he so rarefies the human spirit that it 
is unable to perceive other rarefied human spirits. 

In modern terms this would be called “the mind- 
stuff” theory, and Quimby ingeniously propounded it 
a decade or two before the English thinker Clifford. 
The latter, of course, sought a purely rationalistic ex- 
planation of the baffling problem of the relation of body 


QUIMBY, THE DISCOVERER 39 


and mind. By the help of “ mind-stuff” he built a 
tenuous, yet logical bridge between the two objects. 
Quimby is not so clear, yet he is quite ingenious. If 
spirits are absolutely pure, there is no possible means 
of communication between them. ‘There may be a 
logical relation between A and B, but if the minds of 
both are pure transparencies how does A know when 
-B is around? They must render themselves visible to 
each other; signals are not communicated without 
something to signal with. Hence arises the need of 
some sort of soul-stuff and of the power of the spirit 
to render itself a tenuous but visible entity. 

In all this Quimby was ingenious, but he was not 
original. He had been through his mesmeric period 
and the mesmerists of his day were variously called 
magnetic healers, electro-biologists and the like. Now 
electricity at that time was considered a fluid. Frank- 
lin had propounded the theory, but he would have been 
mightily surprised at the uses made.of it. By his light- 
ning conductors he sought to save houses and barns, 
men and cattle. But the magnetic healers and electro- 
biologists sought to convey occult messages, miracu- 
lously heal diseases, and even to save souls from the 
errors of mortal mind by means of this wonderful mag- 
netic fluid. Mesmer himself was, of course, responsible 
for this perversion. He talked about “a universal 
principle,” the magnetic fluid—“a fluid universally 
diffused, so continuous as not to admit of a vacuum, 
incomparably subtle, and naturally susceptible of re- 
ceiving, propagating, and communicating all motor 
disturbances, is the means of the influence.” * 

But see what strange uses are made of this theory. 





7 Binet and Féré; Animal Magnetism, p. 5, New York, 1898. 


40 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


In an old Yankee chap-book which circulated in 
Quimby’s region there is a diagram showing how the 
dangerous electric fluid may be kept off by oiled spec- 
tacles, as if oil would not mix with the electric fluid. 
Franklin, of course, propounded the fluidic theory of 
electricity, but he would have smiled a quizzical smile 
at this application of it. Later we shall see this 
“Principle ” psychologised by the Quimbyites and 
capitalised—in more senses than one—by the Eddy- 
ites. And so that which began as a magnetic fluid with 
Mesmer, ends in becoming a mere ghost of itself in 
The Christian Science Monitor—a journal which pre- 
fers to put the word “ Principle ” on the “ Walls of the 
Universe ” and take down the good old-fashioned word 
“God,” the latter being apparently out of favour as 
suggesting a certain masculinity, 


IV 
QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN 


“Psycho-therapy, indeed, might well be cited in sup- 
port of the old adage that there ss nothing new but what 
has been forgotten. Traces of it are to be found almost 
as far back as authentic history extends, and even allusions 
to methods which bear a strong resemblance to those of 
modern times.”—H. ADDINGTON Bruce. 


therefore by inference Mrs. Eddy) in the place in 

which he belongs. ‘The place is that of the primi- 
tive healer who was priest, magician and physician in 
one. According to Cutten, mental healing can be 
traced back three thousand years.* Hence Quimby’s 
system was little but a recrudescence of the past put in 
more or less modern terms. So to examine his three- 
fold role: He inveighed against the priests, but he made 
constant use of the religion of his day, just as did the 
contemporary spiritualistic healers. The letters ex- 
changed with his patients are necessarily couched in | 
Biblical language, for this was the generation of the 
Restorationists, or those who believed in the return of 
apostolic gifts, such as speaking with tongues and 
divine healing. And as the Restorationists asserted the 
perpetuity of miracles, so one of Quimby’s correspond- 
ents rejoiced that The Age of Miracles had returned, 


[' now remains to locate Quimby historically, (and 





1G. B. Cutten, Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing, p. 
4, 1911 


41 


42 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


and one of his interpreters wrote that he ‘“‘ seemed to 
reproduce the wonders of the Gospel history.” ? 

Thus in his religious rdle Quimby was looked upon 
as successfully practicing “‘ the apostolic mode of heal- 
ing the sick without fee or reward.” This led him to 
despise the country doctor with his shilling-a-mile visit. 
So he inveighs against “‘ the wrongs inflicted upon his 
patients by the medical faculty,” and succeeded in 
gaining followers by his Jeremiads. “The people— 
what they believe they will create,” he said. No state- 
ment could be truer. As another contemporary testi- 
fies, the growing distrust in the virtue of medicine led 
the public to look upon Quimby as a true reformer. 
But here, obviously, magic and mental medicine were 
combined. According to the account of one patient 
the new theory was that disease is but an invention of 
mind, a penalty which is a result of our own belief, 
because the mind, which is spiritual matter, is disturbed 
by excitement, anger and the like.® 

Priest, magician, and physician,—Quimby under- 
took the triple rdle of the primitive medicine man, but 
with certain qualifications due to the times. The nine- 
teenth century has been called the age of science; at 
any rate the mid-century was the period when, in 
America, the demand for science had penetrated even 
the backwoods. To gain popular approval, therefore, 
Quimby, as early as 1850, called his system ‘‘ The 
science”’;: ‘then .“ Science.’”’;; next, . by: 1861,» The 
Science of Health,” and finally, by 1863, “ Christian 
Science.” 

The latter was a clever phrase. Called ‘‘ Christian,” 
it appealed to the religionist, and the New Englander, 





?W. F. Evans, Mental Medicine, p. 210, 1872. 
® Quunby Manuscripts, p. 94 and passim. 


QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN 43 


as Thomas Jefferson once remarked, was a “ church- 


going animal.” Called “Science,” it appealed to the 
growing naturalism, to the generation when The 
Popular Science Monthly was founded and when the 
lyceum lectures included even the followers of Herbert 
Spencer and other agnostics.* Nevertheless, there re- 
mained a latent conflict between science and religion. 
This was astutely concealed by a theory that seemed 
scientific but could be used in a supernatural way. 
Refine matter enough and a breath will blow it away; 
atomise body and it will become of such an attenuated 
nature that the mind can project it as a mere thought. 
My spiritual senses, explains Quimby, could be affected 
many miles from the patent: 8 = 

So under the ‘‘ new ” metaphysics there is presented 
the whole programme of occultism from amulets to 
exorcisms. As one patient declared, Quimby did not 
give “the infinitesimal atoms of homeopathy,” but he 
did utilise their formule to bolster up his theory of 
mind as spiritualised matter. Quimby now becomes 
the medicine-man with his magic. ‘To the latter, as 
Neuburger says, belongs the amulet, transference of 
diseases, spells, exorcisms, driving out of demons and 
symbolic ritual, combined with the administration of 
medicinal drinks or with rational therapeutic exercises 
such as massage, baths, and dietetic treatment.® 

Such was the primitive medicine and such was 
Quimbyism. One patient keeps Quimby’s picture 
before her and derives benefit from gazing at it. This 
is the belief in the amulet as is the possession of the 





“Cf. John Fiske, Edward Livingston Youmans, Interpreter of 
Science for the People, chaps. 5, 7, 14, 1894. 


* Quimby Manuscripts, p. 247. 
*Neuburger, History of Medicine, 1.7, 1910. 


44 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Eddy souvenir spoon and the use of a volume of 
Science and Health by Christian Scientists as a pro- 
tection against railroad and motor car accidents. As 
for the transference of disease, Quimby himself com- 
plains of becoming identified with the sufferings of his 
patients. ‘‘ When I sit by a patient their feelings affect 
me,” he declares.‘ This was exactly what happened to 
Mrs. Eddy when later she urged the suffering not to 
send their thoughts her way and was obliged to give 
notice that she received no patients, a notice repeated 
in successive editions of Science and Health. As she 
complained to a cousin: “ I feel the weight of sick folks 
terribly since my book is at work.” ® 

As for spells and exorcisms, Quimby compares dis- 
eases to evil spirits which people are afraid of and thus 
‘“‘ make it necessary for them to have help in driving 
off their enemies.” Thus he explains consumption as 
possessing ‘‘ an identity, life, or a kind of knowledge. 

. Now for people who admit the existence and 
superiority of their enemy or disease to commence 
making war with him by calomel, blistering or burning, 
only enrages the enemy. So the way to cure the sick 
is to ‘‘ face the error and argue it down. ... It re- 
quires great shrewdness to get the better of the error; 
for disease is the work of the devil or error.” 

And so, adds the medicine man of Maine, “I take 
the symptoms and know who is the devil. I expose 
him and when I make the patient know him the devil 
leaves, the error is cast out, the belief leaves and the 
patient is cured.” °® All this may be compared with 
Mrs. Eddy’s Wentworth Manuscript, already partially 





"Quimby Manuscripts, pp. 211, 212, 174, 
® Letter quoted in The New York ‘American, Feb. 26, 1911. 
® Quimby Manuscripts, p. 280. 


QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN 45 


) quoted, which begins “ First the fever is to be argued ‘ 
; down,” and concludes, “ This belief is the red dragon, 
' the king of beasts.” 1° 
: It is needless to say that we have here a kind of dis- 
* guised demonology. It shows that in Quimby’s mind, 
as in that of the primitive man, religion and thera- 
peutics were inextricably woven.’' Nevertheless, as 
intimated above, there may be combined with these 
magic formule certain rational therapeutic measures. 
In one letter Quimby actually advises setting-up exer- 
cises “to relax the waist at the pit of the stomach, 
taking away the pressure from the nerves and allaying 
the irritation.” 7° But while Quimby gave a few prac- 
tical hints like massaging the scalp for headache, these 
were apparently considered mere sops to Cerberus, 
mere accommodations to a perverse generation. They 
are not valuable in themselves but only as aids to faith. 
When Mrs. Eddy later charged that Quimby was a 
mere animal magnetiser with all the strokes and passes 
of Mesmer she contradicted her own testimonial of 
1862 where she said that “‘ My operator believed in 
disease independent of the mind; hence, I could not be 
wiser than my teacher.” ** 
' Now what is the “ great principle” which underlies 
Dr. Quimby’s faith and works. His system was 
magical mental medicine. As mental medicine it con- 
tained the truths and values of suggestive therapeutics; 
such as the toning up of the system and the cure of 
certain functional diseases. But as magical it de- 
manded a peculiar theory to bolster it up. That theory 





7 Milmine, p. 131. 
ign Oy Cutten, poi2i. 
2 Ouimby Manuscripts, p 
en sen Be: Patterson GBay) in The Portland Evening Courter, 
OV 186 


46 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


was that mind was an attenuated form of matter and 
that matter was capable of refinement into a spiritual 
body. This naturally led to the whole gamut of occult 
phenomena from apparitions to thought transference. 
This ‘‘ new ” principle was called ‘“‘ metaphysics,” but 


_ it was not new metaphysics. Primitive man’s shadow, 


STs tre Pr 


his dream, his hallucination of self, all point to the 
double of his body, and none of these are bodiless. So 
with Quimby. In 1861 he defined mind as spiritual 
matter and body as nothing but a “ dense shadow con- 
densed into what is called matter.” But of matter he 
said: “‘ It is only an idea that can be formed into any 
shape.” 

Quimby essays the solution of the problem of mind 
and body and only half succeeds. Instead of saying 
boldly that man is homogeneous, he says, in so many 
words, that he is heterogeneous, consisting of two dis- 
tinct selves. In one of his early writings he contends 
that “ there is a principle or inward man that governs 
the outward man or body, and when these are at vari- 
ance or out of tune, disease is the effect, while by har- 
monising them health of the body is the result.” 14 
With this kind of disguised dualism logical trouble is 
bound to ensue. Like the farce of Box and Cox, it is 
hard to know which party occupies the apartment of 
the self. One anxious inquirer asked Quimby whether 
this belief (in the “ new ” principle) ‘“‘ does not make 
man entirely superior to circumstances, and also make 
everything an idea without substance and so take away 
the reality of existence? ” 

Quimby is so hard put to it in answering this and a 
kindred puzzle that he has to revive an ancient Chris- 





4 Quimby Manuscripts, p. 69. 


QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN A? 


tian heresy to escape from his dilemma. When a per- 
sistent questioner demands: ‘‘ What became of the 
body of Jesus after it was laid in the ground, if you do 
not believe it rose?” the answer was: “ Jesus is the 
idea ‘‘ matter,”’ so those that believed that Jesus Christ 
was one believed that His body and soul were crucified. 
Now came their doubts whether this same idea should 
rise again. Some believed it would, others doubted. 
So far as Christ was concerned, all their opinions had 
no effect. Christ was the Wisdom that knew matter 
was only an idea that could be formed into any shape, 
and the life that moved it came not from it, but was 
outside of it.” * 

Historically this was an aberrant doctrine of a third 
century sect, the Gnostics, and was propounded in the 
apocryphal Gospel according to St. Peter. Yet Quim- 
by’s sources here were presumably not historical, but 
due to circumstances. Nevertheless his valiant at- 
tempts to harmonise mind and matter are in vain; he 
oscillates between the two, and as Box and Cox did not 
look well in one another’s clothes, so is it here. To 
borrow material terms and apply them to the spiritual 
results in such absurd statements as that ‘“‘ mind has 
weight; the truth opens the pores; memory is one of 
the chemical changes; bronchitis is a belief that sets 
hard upon the stomach.” 

Mixed notions lead to mixed metaphors, and when 
the Quimbyites reply that such statements are figura- 
tive, being merely accommodations to mortal mind, we 
can take the other side and show that defining matter 
in terms of spirit will lead to something worse, and that 
is logical nihilism. When mind is defined as spiritual 





* Ibid., p. 176. 


48 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


matter, and matter as shadow, it follows that matter is 
but a spiritual shadow and that nothing is certain. 
Philosophically this is pure phenomenalism and turns 
the world into an illusion. Practically it resolves itself 
into the final dictum of Quimby’s chief work, namely, 
that “ natural man is nothing but an idea which Science 
uses to illustrate some fact or problem that is for the 
development of Science.” *° 

An added word of explanation is called for. The 
reader needs to know the familiar occult method of 
double interpretation in order to understand what this 
is all about. By “ Science ” is meant Quimby’s “ scien- 
tific man,” and by the “ scientific man” the spiritual 
self. Science to the ordinary reader—and let us hope 
that he is still sane in spite of reading thus far—science 
means natural science. But Quimby, by a curious in- 
version, makes science mean “ spiritual ”’ science and, 
by a kind of speculative shorthand, uses it to stand for 
the “spiritual”? man. In plain English, if the thing 
can be made plain, there is a dualism between the 
natural man and the “ scientific man.” To reconcile 
the two a compromise has to be made. The compro- 
mise may be fatal to the party of the first part, but that 
does not matter. For the sake of getting the contrast 
clearly before his pupils Quimby ends his chief manu- 
script, Christ or Science, in this fashion: 


“The natural man is made of flesh and blood; Science 
is not. Man has life; Science is life. Man has sight; 
Science is sight. Man has feeling; Science is feeling. 
Man has all of the five senses; Science is all of the five 
senses. Man of himself cannot do anything; Science can 
do all things. Man is of matter; Science is not. ‘Then, 





7° Ibid., p. 229. 


QUIMBY, THE MEDICINE MAN 49 


what is man, independent of Science? Nothing but an 
idea of life and death. Then where does he differ from 
the brute, where does Science make the distinction? It 
makes no distinction. Who does? ‘The first cause, or 
God. How? In attaching Science to the identity called 
man, ‘Then, does Science have an identity? Yes. What 
is it? Wisdom, or God. When you give it all its quali- 
ties, what kind of person is it? It is the Scientific man, 
not of flesh and blood, but of that world where error 
never comes. It speaks through man. What does? Its 
life, or the wisdom of God. How does it get its food? 
By the sweat of its brow, or the development of itself. 
Where does it differ from the natural man? In every- 
thing. Show, by illustration. The natural man is nothing 
but an idea which Science uses to illustrate some fact or 
problem that is for the development of Science.” 1” 


All this has a strangely familiar sound. It is the 
original draught of the Christian Science formula for a 
‘“‘ demonstration ” or treatment of the sick. As Mrs. 
Eddy wrote it out in her chapter entitled Recapitula- 
tion, which was taken from her first class-book, that 
formula runs as follows: 


“ Question : ‘ What is the Scientific statement of being?’ 
Answer: ‘ There is no life, substance, or intelligence in 
matter ; all is mind; there is no matter. Spirit is immortal 
truth, matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and 
eternal, matter the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, 
and man is His image and likeness ; hence, man is spiritual 
and not material.’ ” 18 


But this is putting the cart before the horse. The 





™ Quimby Manuscripts, pp. 228-229. 

*% This class-book is entitled The Science of Man by which the 
Sick are Healed, embracing Questions and Answers in Moral 
Science arranged for the Learner.’ (Copyright, 1870.) 


50 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Eddyite healing formula represents the last fruits of 
Quimby’s teachings. Prior to Quimby’s ‘‘ emergence 
into light ” there had been preliminary stages, a welter 
of notions into which Mrs. Eddy stepped when she first 
met the Portland healer and which made her an easy 
believer because these notions were more or less in the 
air. Her early letters contain phrases peculiar to 
Quimby such as “ angel visits’ and “ omnipresence.” 
Her later description of her “ cure” is couched in the 
very language of the letters Quimby wrote to his 
patients. After a fall on the icy sidewalk she de- 
scribes ‘“‘the nervous heat” which her friends are 
forming about her and the terrible spinal affection from 
which she has suffered so long and hopelessly.*® 

All this sounds perfectly incomprehensible. Never- 
theless, it can be understood. These phrases are part 
and parcel of the strange system which Quimby had 
been working out for twenty-five years. To this system 
we turn in our next chapter. 





* Quimby Manuscripts, p. 163. 


V 
QUIMBY, THE OCCULTIST 


“The discussion of so-called Christian Science as a 
religion 1s best left to theologians. As a therapeutic 
method it concerns not only medical practitioners, but 
every rational human beg. Undeniably the treatment is 
one of suggestion, and, speaking more specifically, of sug- 
gestion by the induction of the negative hallucination. 
The rise and spread of the cult, while remarkable, is, how- 
ever, far from being a phenomenon unparalleled in history. 

“ Leaders of such movements not infrequently present 
striking instances of the force and power of persons who, 
developing mystic ideas in early life, conceive, and finally 
firmly believe, that they are endowed with a special mis- 
sion for the reformation of the world, and have thus been 
stimulated to exert themselves with remarkable persistence 
and energy. They are often undeniably great in the scope 
of thewr delusions and the force and persistence with which 
they promulgate them—and what shall we say of their 
followers? The latter are merely examples of the spread 
of a delusion, a true folie communiquée.”—F. X. DERCUM. 


UIMBY’S system, in brief, consisted of four 
() powers, three principles, and two planes or 
levels of thought. As to the first the human 
spirit is claimed to possess powers or senses which 
function independently of matter. These “ spiritual 
senses ” are: clairvoyance; detecting odours or atmos- 
pheres at a distance; reading another’s mind; and the 
ability to ‘travel in spirit, making oneself both felt 
and seen—if the recipient of such a visit be himself 
clairvoyant.” ; 
51 


52 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Again under the need of a higher “ genuinely spirit- 
ual” psychology, Quimby’s Science of Health pro-" 
pounded three principles. These are “the human 
spirit with its higher senses; the idea of the Divine 
presence as guiding wisdom and healing power; the 
identification of this wisdom with the Christ in terms 
of a demonstrable Science which all might understand.” 
These principles, when further considered, disclose a 
dualism or what might be called in the language of the 
Spiritualists two planes or levels. The one is the world 
of opinion where there is “a mind to mind projection 
of human thought,” the other is the world of Science 
where reigns “‘ the Divine Presence as Love.” The 
two planes are merely those common among the spirit- 
ualists, namely, the plane of ordinary life and the 
“‘ superior ”’ plane where there is a supernal communi- 
cation between spirits. 

The source of this system, though complicated, is not 
far to seek. Clairvoyance and mind-reading formed 
the stock-in-trade of the mesmerists or animal magnet- 
isers. Odours or atmospheres, together with the ability 
to ‘‘ travel in spirit,’ were variations on the material- 
isations of the spiritualists. Of course the Quimbyites 
will deny this and base their denial on the Master’s own 
words. In the early forties Quimby travelled about as 
a public exhibitor of mesmerism, but, by 1847, he de- 
clared that magnetic healing was a humbug. He also 
frequently denounced the ‘“ Rochester rappings ” of 
the Fox sisters. But what he says about ‘“ shadows ” 
is more than a shadow of spiritualism. In 1860 he 
writes to a suffering patient: 


“You are as plain before my eyes as you were when I 
was talking to the shadow in Portland. For the shadow 


QUIMBY, THE OCCULTIST 53 


came with the substance, and that which I am talking to 
now is the substance. If I make an impression on it, it 
may throw forth a shadow of a young lady upright with- 
out that ‘ gone place’ at the pit of the stomach.” * 


This grotesque doctrine is akin to the ghostly double 
of primitive man. But in Quimby’s case there is an 
attempt to make it seem modern and to give it the 
sanctity of religion. ‘‘ Eternal wisdom,” continues the 
Portland healer, ‘“‘ teaches us that all matter is in itself 
a shadow and is no barrier.’”’? This sounds like an ap- 
proach to high idealism. It is quite the contrary, for 
the doctrine smells to heaven. As the Portland philos- 
opher explains: 


“ Now, if I am here sitting and talking with you I must ~ 
leave the earth and matter and come to you. If Iam with 
you, what is it that has left the body? It cannot be mat- 
ter in a visible form, yet it is something. Listen, and I 
will tell you. . . . As all matter decomposes, the dust or 
odour that arises from it was the matter that [the natural 
man] was formed of.” ? 


Matter, then, is a shadow, and the shadow an odour. 
If, therefore, the shadow be projected, the odour or 
atmosphere can be detected. But Quimby had just 
said that the substance can “ throw forth a shadow,” 
hence the proposition is true. All this seems mere rea- 
soning inacircle. So do the arguments for the remain- 
ing “‘ spiritual senses,” namely, reading another’s mind, 
the ability to travel in spirit, and making oneself both 
felt and seen—“ if the recipient of such a visit be him- 
self clairvoyant.” But assuming that the substance as 





Quimby Manuscripts, p. 134. 
? [bid., p. 137. 


54 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


shadow can be projected, both mind-reading and omni- 
presence follow. Nevertheless, Quimby’s theory is not 
so important as the practice. The power of projection 
is turned to the uses of healing, first as diagnosis of 
diseases, and second as absent treatment. In his 
tractate entitled, The World of the Senses, Quimby 
puts this matter very boldly: 


“When philosophers say that matter is not under the 
control of the mind,” he says, “this is wrong. . . . The 
natural man being only an idea like a shadow, after this 
shadow goes through a certain change like any other mat- 
ter it is in a state to be a medium of a higher power... . - 
Take a person with consumption. The idea consumption 
decomposes and throws off an odour that contains all the 
ideas of the person affected. . . . Now, I have found by 
twenty years’ experience that these odours affect me, and 
also that they contain the identity of the patient whom 
this odour surrounds. ‘This called my attention to it, and 
I have found that it was as easy to tell the feelings or 
thought of the person sick as to detect the odour of spirits 
from that of tobacco. I at first thought I inhaled it, but 
at last found that my spiritual sense could be affected by 
it when my body was at a distance of many miles from the 
patient. ‘This led to a new discovery, and I found my 
senses were not in my body, but that my body was in 
my senses. ... This knowledge put in practice is the 
Science of Health and is for the benefit of the sick and 
suffering.” ? 


All this at once suggests what Mrs. Eddy claimed as 
her “ precious discovery,” Science and Health with its 
“‘ spiritual senses sharper than the material,” with its 
absent treatment, and with its purpose to find suffering 





*Ibid., pp. 235-249, 


QUIMBY, THE OCCULTIST 55 


and relieve it. But our present task is to estimate the 
antecedents of Quimby’s creed. It is not necessary to 
go back to primitive man’s belief in ghosts as real enti- 
ties, nor to medieval sympathetic medicine, where 
there was thought to be an occult relationship between 
disease and remedy, such as that between liver com- 
plaint and liver-wort. The sources lie nearer in the 
theories and practices of the day. Just as the spirit- 
ualists materialised the dead, Quimby materialised 
disease; just as the animal magnetisers projected 
thoughts, Quimby projected feelings. Just as the 
homeopathists attenuated drugs into their highly di- 
luted remedies, Quimby attenuated the material into 
the spiritual. To him the chief proof is that it is a 
good rule which works both ways. He declares that 
“‘mind is matter held in solution, which the power of 
Wisdom can condense into a solid so dense as to be- 
‘come the substance called ‘‘ matter.” Assume this 
theory and then you can see how man can become sick 
and get well by a change of mind.” * 

Assuming that this theory will work, let us see what 
the Portland practitioner makes of it. A modern 
psycho-therapeutist is familiar with the so-called sym- 
pathetic transfer of symptoms between two persons. 
But he does not refer this to telepathy or to any mys- 
terious medium, but to actual sound or sight; that is, 
to verbal suggestion or the imitation of the other 
patient’s grimaces and groans. There is no vacuum 
between the two subjects but an actual transfer by 
means of words, sounds, pressures and the like. It is 
not so with an occultist like Quimby. He was no doubt 
a healer who was sympathetic in the ordinary meaning 





“Quimby Manuscripts, p. 234. 


56 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


of the word. Nevertheless, he needs an extraordinary 
theory to account for that fact. A few sentences from 
his World of the Senses will explain his notions: 


“You feel a pain, I also feel it,” he declares. “ Now, 
the sympathy of our minds mingling is spiritual matter. 
But there is no wisdom in it, for wisdom is outside of 
matter. If we both feel the same pain, we each call it our 
own; for we are devoid of that wisdom which would 
make us know we were affecting each other. Each one 
has his own identity and wants sympathy, and the igno- 
rance of each is the vacuum that is between us. So we 
are drawn together by this invisible action called sympa- 
thy. Now, make man wise enough to know that he can 
feel the pains of another, and then you get him outside of 
matter.” ® 


Enough of Quimby’s four powers; now for his three 
principles. The latter follow directly from the former, 
but to them is added a religious tinge. There is as- 
sumed not only the human spirit with its higher senses, 
but “the idea of a divine presence as guiding wisdom 
and human power and the identification of this wisdom 
with the Christ in terms of a demonstrable science 
which all might understand.” 

Leaving aside these religious implications for the 
present, the rest of Quimbyism resolves itself into the 
“human spirit with its higher senses, including the 
mind projection of human thought.” These turn out to 
be nothing but the “ higher phenomena ” of the early 
magnetisers. Here a comparison may be made and the 
comparison is close. Quimby defined these spiritual 
senses as clairvoyance, detecting odours from disease 
at a distance, reading another’s mind, and ability to 





° Ibid., p. 245. 


QUIMBY, THE OCCULTIST 57 


travel in spirit. Now for the comparison. The mag- 
netiser’s of the forties describe their higher phenomena 
as clairvoyance at close quarters, or seeing without 
eyes; clairvoyance at a distance, including transference 
of sensations; and travelling clairvoyance. Such were 
their three phenomena fondly believed to be facts. 
The three theories made up to suit these phenomena 
were, first, for clairvoyance or vision through opaque 
bodies, the all penetrating action of the hypothetical 
magnetic fluid; next, for transference of sensation, the 
concentration of nerve force; and, lastly for travel- 
ling clairvoyance, the action of the soul apart from 
the body.® 

In these descriptions two main factors are observ- 
able. They are based on the old fluidic theory of 
Mesmer and reinforced by the doctrine of the spiritual- 
ists. Now Mesmerism was brought to America by the 
French magnetiser, Charles Poyen, and was taken up 
in New England by a Dr. Collyer, who lectured in 
Quimby’s home town, Belfast, in 1838.‘ Furthermore 
spiritualism, or more properly spiritism, was a revival 
of primitive beliefs by that precious pair, the Fox sis- 
ters, who began their toe-cracking, “‘ Rochester rap- 
pings,” in 1848. 

Against this resolution of the Quimby system into 
its historic constituents the Quimbyites, of course, 
would protest. The Portland healer, they claim, out- 
grew mesmerism and repudiated spiritualism.’ But in 





®Frank Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science, p. 145, 
Philadelphia, 1909. 

7H. W. Dresser, A History of the New rhought Movement, 
p. 29, 1919. 

® Compare Quimby’s letter to a clergyman where he ascribes his 
cures, not to his spiritual influence, but to “ Wisdom that is above 
man.’ Manuscripts, p. 144. 


58 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


his World of the Senses Quimby claims that the denial 
of the phenomenon of mesmerism is futile. A mesmer- 
ised person, he explains, is all that any person can be 
in a waking state, and at the same time he is another 
person separate from his earthly identity. This, he 
adds, is the mystery or power that has troubled the 
wisdom of this world to solve, but one can understand 
the phenomenon by going back to the First Cause and 
seeing what man is.? Quimby now propounds a crude 
theory, even cruder than the old fluidic theory. It is 
that “‘ the sense of smell is the foundation of language, 
and since man invented language it was to convey his 
thoughts by means of odours. . . . Now, if you will 
admit that mind is spiritual matter, then the world of 
matter is based on opinions, whereas the wisdom of 
Science is of God. . . . Now, the scientific man sees 
through matter and to be in the scientific world is to 
enter the world where wisdom sees through matter. 
This is the condition of those who are thrown into the 
clairvoyant state.” 7° 

In its last issue Quimbyism reduces itself to a form 
of philosophic sensationalism and that based on the 
lowest of the senses. Yet in 1860 he had the boldness 
to claim that the ‘“ Science that he tried to practice is 
the science that was taught eighteen hundred years ago 
and has never had a place in the heart of man since.” #4 





°Tbid., pp. 253-254, 
2 Tbid., pp. 239-255. 
4 Tbid., p. 144, 


VI 
QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 


“Twenty centuries of progress in the training of 
thought and in the discernment of nature’s processes have 
not been sufficient to free mankind of the idea that the 
omnipotence of God must disclose itself, as well as in 
many other ways, by a constant regulation of the functtons 
of the human body én health and disease. And whenever 
we find the idea firmly implanted we also find the. out- 
cropping of superstition, with the wonder cures dependent 
on tt.’—GrorcE W, JACOBY. 


N an illuminating volume entitled The Relation of 
Medicine to Philosophy (London, 1909), R. C. 
Moon has the following: 

“‘ This fond belief appealed powerfully to the popular 
uneducated mind, ever ready to believe in the fanciful 
and marvellous, especially in the realm of medicine, 
and which, clouded and trammelled by the world of the 
senses, is unable to travel out of the sphere of time and 
space to the region of Noumenal Being, in which the 
true mystic lives and moves, but with a certain intel- 
lectual coarseness accepts ideas as spiritual which are > 
really only a refined form of materialism.” 

This passage leads us to consider that if Quimby’s 
theory was strange, his practice was stranger. Hark- 
ing back to some mesmeric experiments made upon his 
“ sensitive ”’ Lucius in 1842, Quimby states that he 
could create the odour of any kind of fruit and make 
the mesmerised person taste and smell it. But that was 


59 


60 ‘THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


not all. To every disease there is said to be an odour 
and every one is affected by it when it comes within his 
consciousness. Everyone, he argues, knows that he 
can produce in himself heat or cold by excitement. So 
likewise he can produce the odour of any disease so 
that he is affected by it." What follows from all this? 
Quimby answers: “ The effect upon mind and the pos- 
sibility of the transference of symptoms and the cure 
of disease.”’ As well as one can understand it, the links 
in the Quimbyite chain of reasoning are as follows: 
The mind as spiritual matter can generate diseases 
which have their specific odours. But if no name is 
given to these odours, with their accompanying sensa- 
tions, there is no disease. 

Such statements seem perfectly incredible, but 
Quimby gives two instances under two captions, the 
one entitled The Effect of Mind Upon Mind, and the 
other Two Sciences. Here are some extracts: 


“A woman brought her little son, about five years old, 
to be treated by me. When I sat with the child I found 
his symptoms were similiar (sic) to those which people 
have in spinal or rheumatic troubles. . . . I found that 
the mother had precisely the same feelings as the child, 
yet she complained of disease which the child never 
thought of, and, furthermore, she had not the least idea 
the child had such feeling. . . . If she had been ignorant 
as the child of names, she would not have had the fear of 
these false ideas, and the child would have been well; for 
all its trouble came from its mother, and her trouble was 
from the invention of the medical faculty. 

“ _.. There are two sciences, one of this world, and 
the other of a spiritual world, or two effects produced 
upon the mind or matter by two directions. The wisdom 





Quimby Manuscripts, p. 258. 


QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 61 


of this world acts in this way: It puts its own construction 
on all sensations produced in the mind, and establishes its 
knowledge after the effect is produced. For instance, a 
child feels a pain in its head, the child has no idea what 
it is, and if the mother is as ignorant of its origin as the 
child no effect of any moment is produced. But the 
wisdom of the world arrives in the form of a lady. She 
hears the account of the pain from the mother, and assum- 
ing a wise look gives her opinion in regard to the trouble, 
and says the child is threatened with dropsy of the brain, 
because she shows the same symptoms of another child 
who died of that disease.” ? . 


In arguing that Mrs. Eddy borrowed from the Port- 
land healer the Quimbyites have loosed a boomerang 


which returns upon themselves. The most exagger-"| 


ated claims of the value of the Eddyite treatment are 
no greater than those of Quimby himself. To diagnose 
by intuition, to cure by the power of thought, were 
commonplaces among the spiritists of the day. But to 
claim that naming a disease is causing a disease, and 
that if a child and its mother did not know the name 
of dropsy, for example, it would not exist,—for pro- 
mulgating that peculiar doctrine Quimby himself is 


responsible. He handed on that doctrine to Mrs. Eddy | 


and she made profitable use of it, teaching that a child’s 
pain is nothing but an error of its little mortal mind, or 
a suggestion of a parent, or a false doctrine, or a spe- 
cies of crowd psychosis—mere public belief in the 
existence of various diseases, called asthma and bron- 
chitis, consumption and dropsy. and so on through the 
alphabet. 

But was Quimby the “ een humbug ” that he 
elsewhere says the medical faculty called him? If the 





— * Quimby Manuscripts, pp. 197, 258. 


62 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


two cases he cites were common cases, he must have 
been responsible for a perfect slaughter of innocents. 
Suppose the child with “ nominal ” dropsy did not get 
well, what then? No room is given in Quimbyism for 
a distinction between subjective symptoms and real 
symptoms. However, it is time to leave this quin- 
tessence of cruelty to children as the quintessence of 
absurdity. A metaphysics based on the lowest of the 
five senses is strange metaphysics, but it becomes even 
stranger. Disease is considered by the Portland prac- 
titioner to be not merely an error of mind, a false 
belief due to a deranged state of mind, but a thing in 
itself, an “‘ identity of evil import.” For instance, take 
consumption. 


“People are not aware,” says Quimby, “that con- 
sumption has an identity, as much as a serpent or canker- 
worm, that it has life or a sort of knowledge. It is liable 
to get hold of us, and if it does we cannot shake it off, as 
Paul did the viper, from his hand. All diseases have an 
identity and the well are likely to be deceived. But these 
diseases are in the mind as much as ghosts, witchcraft, or 
evil spirits, and the fruits of this belief are seen in almost 
every person. These beliefs show what the people are 
afraid of, and what they have to contend with, and make 
it necessary for them to have help in driving off their 
enemies. For if a person cannot conquer his enemy or 
disease himself, he must have help. Now, the people 
involved admit the existence and superiority of their 
enemy or disease, and commence making war with him 
by first firing calomel, and if that does not start him, the 
next is blistering, or burning. This only enrages the 
enemy, and a regular battle commences. Finally, a coun- 
cil of physicians is called, a suspension of arms takes 
place, a compromise is made, health yields up all claims 
to happiness and enjoyment, and the victim has the privi- 


QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 63 


lege of going about a cripple and an outcast the balance 
of his natural life, knowing all the time that he is liable 
to be caught by any of his enemies, at any time, either 
asleep or awake. This keeps him in a nervous state of 
mind, not fit for any business, like a man who is in 
prison, under sentence of death. This is the state of 
this world.” 


These documents exhibit Quimby in his true light. 
He attacks the man of medicine, he is himself a medi- 
cine man. Now the latter is described by Herbert 
Spencer as physician, exorciser, priest, who believes 
that accidents, misfortunes, diseases, deaths, perpet- 
ually suggest the agency of malevolent spirits and the 
need for combating them.* But, as Spencer adds, a 
satisfactory distinction between priests and medicine 
men is difficult to find. The same holds true of 
Quimby. As a philosophy his system is as aboriginal 
as that of the North American witch doctor who 
smelled out his victims, but as a religious proposition 
the system is apparently more modern. It implies 
“the divine presence as guiding wisdom and healing, 
identities this wisdom with the Christ and rises to the 
plane of the Divine Presence as Love.” 

Into these claims we need not enter here. How to 
reconcile a philosophy of smells with a religion of love 
was left to Mrs. Eddy, who, between 1870 and 1883, 
passed from the “ chemicalisation of thought ” and the 
“principle which controls matter” to an epoch when 
“angels with overtures announce their principle and 
idea.” > Nevertheless, attached to Quimby’s system, 
which included belief in disease as “a chemical change 





® Quimby Manuscripts, p. 212. (March, 1860.) 
4 Principles of Sociology, Part II, Chap. 6, New York, 1892. 
® Miscellaneous Writings, p. 76. 


64 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


in the mind ” and belief in the congestion of the lungs 
as ‘‘a deposit of matter,” there are certain aberrant 
religious doctrines which demand attention. Foremost 
is the emphasis upon the feminine principle, since this 
prepares the way for Mary Baker Eddy and her an- 
nouncement that truth was to come “ through the per- 
son of a New England girl.” 

Now, Quimby was the inadvertent forerunner for the 
religious matriarchy of ‘“ Mother” Eddy and the 
“Mother ” church. How he came to emphasise the 
feminine in his philosophy is most curious. As a mes- 
merist he found women more “ sensitive” than men. 
So he declared that “‘ women are more spiritual than 
men.” This major premise has as its minor that 
“woman is the spiritual rib of man,” and as its con- 
clusion that “‘ woman’s true position is as a teacher of 
the Science of Health and Happiness.” ® These points 
we have already noticed. What is their source? It is 
hard to say, but it is a significant fact that in Quimby’s 
day and generation the doctrine of the feminine prin- 
ciple of deity was in the air. Mother Ann Lee taught 
it in the adjoining state of New Hampshire in the very 
town where Mary Baker once lived. So did Andrew 
Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer, in his Sacred 
Gospels of Arabula. This “‘ Arabula ” he defined as an 
“intelligent Spiritual Presence . . . the private mani- 
festation of the Father-and-Mother Spirit in each 
human heart.” ‘ Likewise, Thomas Lake Harris, the 
companion and disciple of Davis, in his peculiar work, 
The Lord, and Two in One, speaks of one Father and 
one Mother God and declares that “ before the Fall, 
Man and Woman were conjoined in the likeness of God 





°Quimby Manuscripts, pp. 231, 393, 395. 
* Arabula, p. 69, New York, 1872 (first edition, 1867). 


QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 65 


and at the Fall this bi-sexual unity was divided as in 
the old Platonic myth.” ® 

Now in all this Podmore points out certain parallels 
with developed Eddyism. Such are the Christian 
Science revisions of the Lord’s Prayer so that it reads, 
“Our Father-Mother God,” and the general teaching 
that God is more feminine than masculine. But Pod- 
more does not call attention to Mrs. Eddy’s interpre- 
tation of the separation of the two sexes and her actual 
reference to Plato as the author.? Nor did he connect 
Mrs. Eddy’s doctrine of spiritual marriage with that of 
either Harris or Quimby. As the former explains: 
“ Among my people, as they enter into the peculiar 
physical evolution that constitutes the new life, two 
things decrease—the propagation of the species and 
physical death.” ‘This was written by Harris a num- 
ber of years before the appearance of Science and 
Health.*° But long before that date Quimby held simi- 
lar notions. Between 1860 and 1865 he made these 
statements: “‘ women are more spiritual than men; man 
partakes more of the animal, woman more of the scien- 
tific or spiritual element; as the soil of California is 
rich enough to produce gold so the soul or life of the 
female is rich enough to produce the wisdom of God, 
and woman’s true position is as a teacher of the Science 
of Health and Happiness.” 1 

But enough of these curiosities of literature. 
Quimby as discoverer, or rather rediscoverer, Quimby 





® Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science, p. 240. 

°Compare. her testimonial to Quimby in The ‘Ac biond Evening 
Courier for Nov. 7, 1862: “ When the school Platonic anatomised 
the soul and divided it into halves, to be reunited by elementary 
attractions.” 

? Podmore, op. cit., p. 241. Also nie Banaree of Christian 
Science, ‘ “Contemporary Review,” Jan., 

2 Ouimby Manuscripts, pp. Ah 235, 308, 


66 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


as medicine man, Quimby as occultist and as teacher of 
the Science of Health, obviously prepared the way for 
the so-called discoverer of Science and Health. Be- 
tween the works countless parallels may be found. 
There was, however, one difference, and that seemed to 
Mrs. Eddy fundamental. It was to change a philos- 
ophy based on a crude sensationalism into a philosophy 
based on a pure immaterialism. As she put it in the 
antiquated language of her day: ‘“‘ Ontology was that 
part of our metaphysical system which first engaged 
our attention.” * 

In general this transformation was one from clair- 
voyance as the penetrating action of an hypothetical 
fluid, from chemicalisation or the throwing off of 
odours and atmospheres, from daguerrotyping of dis- 
eases upon the mind, to the postulate that spirit is the 
only substance. In other words, the change is from 
the magnetic fluid of Mesmer, from the humoural 
philosophy of Martyn Paine, from the belief of Hahne- 
mann that spiritual powers exist in drugs, to an at- 
tempted immaterialism, a return to a stage prior to that 
in which the soul had lapsed from pure intellect into 
sense. In striving to make this transition Mrs. Eddy 
naturally found great difficulty. It was like trying to 
make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. She later con- 
fessed to be overcome by the vastness and difficulty of 
the task. How difficult it was is evident from her 
crude attempt to express her meaning. ‘Thus in the 
first chapter of the first edition of Science and Health 
she defines immortal mind as “ the atmosphere of the 
soul pervading all space,” and electricity as “not a 
vital fluid, but an element of mind, the higher link 





™ Science and Health, (3rd ed.), I, 241. 


QUIMBY AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALTH 67 


between the grosser strata of mind, named matter, and 
the more rarefied called mind.” To this is added the 
confession that ‘‘ in these chemical changes we find it 
not easy to overcome sin and sickness.” ** 

These phrases are evident echoes of the Portland 
healer. But just as the latter had helped Mrs. Eddy 
out of her physical slough of despond, so it took an- 
other hand to pull her out of her logical slough of 
words. Eddyism has generally been considered a mere 
speculative swamp, but there are a few paths through 
it and one of these is pointed out by a strange guide. 
lf the emergence into health was “‘ by the help of the 
Lord, (Quimby)” the emergence into light was by the 
help of an entirely different character, Bronson Alcott, 
of Concord, Massachusetts. 





9 [bid., pp. 23, 27, 46. 


VII 
FROM MIND HEALING TO METAPHYSICS 


“Great Thinker! Great Expecter! to converse with 
whom was a New England Night’s Entertainment.” 
— THOREAU ON ALCOTT. 


, WfeT was Bronson Alcott, “ that undiscouraged patron 
: | of metaphysical cults,” as Milmine puts it, who 
went to Lynn upon an invitation to visit Mrs. 
' Glover (Eddy).* We know Alcott as a vegetarian and 
visionary who lived on “ aspiring ” plants, like aspara- 
gus, deplored the use of drugs, and sympathised with 


any new system of healing the sick without medicine. © 


He one time wrote to a friend, “ As a general state- 
ment it holds that diseases of the body have their rise 
in the soul.” * So, too, it was Alcott who founded that 
strange philosophic colony of Fruitlands, and it was 
under the pseudonym of Abel that he was described by 
his exasperated daughter Louisa as a sower of tran- 
scendental wild oats. 

Now, one of these oats was Eddyism, for the meta- 
physics of the two systems agree in essentials, and 
especially in teaching that man’s origin is not due to an 
ascent from the animals, but to a descent from the 
angels. This evolution or Darwin theory is false, says 





*Georgine Milmine, The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy, p. 160, 
New York, 1909. 

* Manuscript Letter, Dec. 12, 1876. For the use of this and 
other quotations from the Diaries, Letters, and other Autobio- 
graphical materials I have the kind permission of Mrs, F. Alcott 
Pratt, of Concord, Mass. 


68 


an 


Ser, 


FROM MIND HEALING TO METAPHYSICS 69 


Mrs. Eddy, there is no life in matter.* If the reader 
will take the official Concordance* to Science and 
Health there may there be found such unusual philo- 
sophic words as absorption, emanation, lapse,—ab- 
sorption into deity, emanation from the divine mind, 
lapse from harmony into darkness. 

Where in heaven did these rare phrases come from? 
The answer is obvious, if one follows the guiding thread 
of resemblance. As the Portland healer had given Mrs. 
Eddy her therapeutic hints, so the philosopher of Fruit- 
lands gave her those “ inklings historic ” which enabled 
her to emerge from the materialistic miasma into the 
upper air of immaterialism. That matter is an illusion, ' 
that body is an error of mortal mind, that the soul 
though lapsed is an emanation of deity and so may be 
reabsorbed into Principle—this peculiar system of 
thought is no more “ hopelessly original” than was the 
system of mental healing derived from Quimby. The 
latter left a materialistic residue which must needs be 
purified. This was more or less accomplished by means 
of a fresh current which tended to aerate the older 
doctrine. References to odours, vapours, and chemical 
scums are often met with in Science and Health, but 
the effort of the author is to get rid of such phrases and 
to attain to pure transparency. 

We propose later to compare in order the successive 
chapters of the first edition of Science and Health and 
the early writings of Alcott. But it is well to know 
beforehand what manner of man it was who visited the 
veiled prophetess of Lynn. The ascetic of Fruitlands 
is described by his philosophic biographer, William T. 
Harris, as “a theologic idealist intoxicated with the 





® Science and Health (1st ed.), p. 257 
* FE. g. edition of 1914, for Science and Health of March, 1908, 


70 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


One. . . . Hence all his utterances have the form of 
philosophemes, and he has furnished them of the best 
quality both in prose and poetry. To match anything 
from Hermes Trismegistus, or Pythagoras or the Chal- 
dean Oracles, take some of his Orphic Sayings® 

There are difficulties in this description because it 
presents a most technical aspect of New England tran- 
scendentalism. The Orphic Sayings we shall attempt 
to clarify later. The philosophemes were those subtle 
and suggestive utterances which Alcott sent to Harris 
for the latter’s Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 
Take, for instance, the following on Person: 


“ ‘The lapsed Personality, or deuce human and divine, 
has played the prime part in metaphysical theology of 
times past, as it does still. But rarely has thought freed 
itself from the notion of duplicity, triplicity, and grounded 
its faith in the Idea of the One Personal Spirit, as in 
Parmenides, Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus—the Greek 
genius first mastering this problem of pure theism, and 
planting therein a faith and cultus. If we claim more for 
the Hebrew thought, as this rose to an intuition in the 
mind of its inspired thinker, it passed away with him. 
Since Christendom throughout is still mythologising, 
rather than thinking about his mixed attributes; divided, 
subdivided into sects, schools of doctrine; orthodox 
Trinitarian, heterodox Arian, Socinian, Swedenborgian, 
are all so immersed in their special individualism as to be 
unable to rise to the comprehension of the Personal — 
One.’.© 


This is manifestly hard to understand, yet in it there 
are phrases familiar to readers of Christian Science 





°F. B. Sanborn and W. T. dite, A. Bronson Alcott, His Life 
and Philosophy, 2.619, Boston, 1892 
* Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2.49 (1868). 


FROM MIND HEALING TO METAPHYSICS 71 


literature—such as lapsed personality, the idolatry of 
the senses, the symbolism of pure thought. It is prob- 
able that Mrs. Eddy never read the Journal of Specu- 
lative Philosophy, published in St. Louis and meant for 
the elect, although its volumes were on the shelves of 
the Lynn Public Library, when she lived in that town. 
But this same description of Person, except for the 
references to the Greek philosophers and Christian 
sects, appeared in Alcott’s Tablets, published in Boston 
in 1868, just two years prior to Mrs. Eddy’s first copy- 
righted work, The Science of Man, which is said to be 
the basis of Science and Health. Alcott’s Tablets was 
also on the shelves of the Lynn Library while Mrs. 
Eddy was working up her divine metaphysics. 
Between these two documents there is the kinship 
of a common vocabulary, a similarity of words, phrases 
and turns of thought which permeates not only this 
early preliminary section, but every chapter of Science 
and Health. To the objector who claims that Alcott 
had no influence on Eddyism because the date of his 
visit was shortly after the publication of Science and 
Health, we ask—‘‘ What do you make of these re- 
semblances? ”—Only two alternatives are possible— 
either to consider Eddyism a “ first hand revelation ” 
in which “ unfathomable mind has expressed itself ”’ as 
Mrs. Eddy claims, or to consider it a mere crazy quilt, 
made up of various shreds and patches gathered here > 
and there. But even if it be the latter we can see in it 
a recurrent pattern, the pattern of neo-platonism. 
Take statements such as these—they may be peculiar 
but they are consistent, being the component parts of 
an antique system. Thus Plotinus, the arch neo- 
platonist, of whom Alcott was the chief exponent in 
New England, taught three fundamentals, namely that 


72 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


God is Spirit, the soul immortal, and matter illusion. 
These things we have already examined as parts of 
absolute Christian Science presented in the chapter, 
Recapitulation. Now notice how that chapter further 
repeats these themes: ‘‘ This Me (Jehovah) is Spirit. 
. . . When all men are of one mind, man will present 
the Substance of Spirit, and be pure and eternal... . 
Matter is unreal; the Universe and man are shadow 
and idea.” 

We may now compare these statements of Eddyism 
with those of neo-platonism. As a learned inter- 
preter of that ancient doctrine expresses it, ‘‘ Plotinus 
held that God is the foundation of all things, that He 
is immortal and omnipresent, pure light, while matter 
and form are illusions, shadows of the soul. God is 
one and the basis of all thought. Mind is His image. 
Soul is the product of mind’s action and produces other 
actions, such as faith, aspiration, veneration, which rise 
towards God; speculation, reasoning, sophistry, which 
occupy themselves on a lower plane, and the still lower 
qualities of mere physical life. Matter is formed by 
the soul within it, for every form has its soul whether 
apparently living or not. In all is divine life, in the 
stars as on the earth. There is neither time nor space 
in mind: it is the world of the Spirit, in which presides 
a supreme Over-Soul and souls possessed of power to 
think; these souls tend to the higher or to the lower 
and alter accordingly. Those that tend to the higher 
become purified and spiritualised. It is essential to 
know so that one may attain, and he whose mind is 
illumined sees the Highest, the Light which lightens the 
world. To him it is given to become united with the 
Supreme.” * 


7A. M. Stoddard, The Life of Paracelsus, p. 240, London, 1911. 


FROM MIND HEALING TO METAPHYSICS 73 


God as Spirit, the lapse of the immortal soul into 
matter which is unreal—this is the quintessence both of 
neo-platonism and of Eddyism. In withdrawing from 
the world to ponder her mission to mankind, Mrs. Eddy 
confessed that she was surprised at the vastness of her 
subject. Well she might be. It was the problem of 
evil she was trying to solve and as a professional opti- 
mist she received the help of another of like mind. 


Vill 
ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 


| “Evil has no positive existence. It has usurped the 
| positive place and being in the popular imagination and 
by the imagination must be made to flee away into 
‘negative life. How shall this be done? By shadowing 
forth in vivid colours the absolute beauty and phenomena 
of good; by assuming evil not as positive but as negative; 
the dark background and blot in the picture by contrast. 
God alone is eternal good, eternal truth. Evil, like its 
prototype darkness, is not a thing at all but the absence 
of a thing.”’—ALcorTt. 


“Tf evil is real, st is not temporal, for all that is real 
! proceedeth from God, and is eternal. But evil is illusion, 
‘an error; and Truth and error, like light and darkuess, 
cannot dzwell together; when one appears the other dis- 
appears. ‘God is too pure to behold iniquity’ To Truth 
there is no error, all is Truth. To Spirit there is no mat- 
ter, all és Principle and idea.”’—Mrs. Eppy. 


WOULD ask anyone into whose hands this book 

may come, to read the above two passages, and 

then see if he can tell them apart? I think he 
would admit that unless the names of the authors were 
attached it would be hard to tell which was written by 
which. Now, the reason that the parallel is so close is 
that the problem is so difficult that Mrs. Eddy follows 
the line of least resistance by copying almost literally 
what Alcott had offered as a solution. 


74 


ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 75 


In making these comparisons we have that kind of 
evidence which is demanded by what is known as the 
higher criticism. It is internal evidence, or resem- 
blance in ideas, and is corroborative of the external 
evidence, which deals with the actual contact between 
two thinkers. Even if the latter—the visit of Alcott 
to Mrs. Eddy—were lacking, the evidence would be 
strong, because the similarities are striking between the 
leader of Christian Science and the leader of neo- 
platonism. In the previous chapter we have given the 
general resemblances, but beside these we shall make 
a more particular comparison, and that is between 
Alcott’s first philosophy in his strange Orphic Sayings 
and the first chapter of the first edition of Science 
and Health. 

We have, then, a three-fold task: first, the external 
evidence as to the fact and date of Alcott’s visit to Mrs. 
Eddy and her little band at Lynn; next, the internal 
_ evidence as to the general resemblances between the 
two systems, and, lastly, the particular parallels in 
thought and word in the successive chapters in the 
“‘ divine text-book.” 

We shall give the external evidence shortly. Mean- 
while, it is in order to present our general line of argu- 
ment. As I have elsewhere said, the problem is to 
account for a system. The assumption is that no sys- 
tem is made out of whole cloth, but that thinkers— 
good, bad, and indifferent—all gather certain raw 
materials to work up into the more or less finished 
product. In this case, if Bronson Alcott himself could 
refer his speculations to predecessors from Plotinus to 
Boehme, it is not out of order to refer Eddyism to 
Alcottism. Primitive Christian Science is certainly a 
series of plagiarisms from Shakerism, Mesmerism, and 


"6 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Quimbyism, for we can make columns of parallel state- 
ments between these movements and the metaphysics 
of ‘‘ Mother ” Eddy. From Mother Ann Lee came the 
notion of the female principle of Deity; from Mesmer, 
by way of inversion, the doctrine of Malicious Animal 
Magnetism; from Quimby, the healer, the sacred 
phrases like ‘Divine Principle,’ “Science and 
Health,” ‘‘ Christian Science,” and the like. A fourth 
element needs clearing up. Whence came that peculiar 
philosophical jargon found in the chapter in Science 
and Health entitled Recapitulation? In an early ar- 
ticle on The Personal Sources of Christian Science+ I 
did not touch on the possible Neo-Platonic echoes, for 
I was not then familiar with the system of Alcott. But 
a study of that system, together with the summary 
given by William T. Harris, (‘“‘a competent philoso- 
pher,” as I called him in the suppressed Cambridge 
History article), showed an unmistakable resemblance 
to Eddyism. Eliminate the three previous elements 
and there remains a residue to be accounted for. With 
the possible exception of the poet Very there is no 
other New England transcendentalist who talks in this 
peculiar fashion about “principle as person,” “ pure 
soul,”’ and especially the ‘‘ lapse ”’ of the soul. 

These phrases are unique. What is their origin? 
When Milmine, a trustworthy compiler whose state- 
ments have never been effectually controverted by the 
Christian Science censors, tells of Alcott’s visit to Mrs. 
Eddy (then Mrs. Glover), the clue is found. Put in 
parallel columns given passages from Recapitulation 
and over a score of passages from Alcott’s own works, 
especially the Orphic Sayings, and there is evident a 
striking resemblance. The argument that Sanborn and 


* Psychological Review, November, 1903. 


ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER ae 


Harris do not mention Alcott’s visit to the Christian 
Science leader is no argument. Assuming that that 
visit was no earlier than 1875, when Science and 
Health first appeared, the sect was then so small, its 
influence so unimportant, that the joint biographers 
could scarcely have noticed it, even if they knew any- 
thing about it.” 

To substantiate this assumption I have made a visit 
to Concord, Massachusetts, and gained the following 
information. Alcott, according to those who knew him, 
was quite unsophisticated in worldly affairs, quite un- 
suspicious of any schemers who had an axe to grind. 
He would take up with the wildest varieties of thought 
and the strangest sorts of visionaries. Called the 
venerable Platonist and idealist, he was attracted by 
any group which went off on an occult trail. For ex- 
ample, his Diary of August 28, 1870, has this entry: 


“At the Spiritualist Camp Meeting at Walden Pond. 
When a company of enthusiasts like these come into one’s 
neighbourhood ’tis civil to welcome them to so charming 
a spot as Thoreau’s haunts and put himself in sympathy 
with them as far as he may. The widest hospitality to all 
extremes of faith is becoming in times like ours, and to a 
faith especially that has won millions of people to its 
acceptance, whatever may be its vagaries and absurdities.” 


With this complaisant recommendation to one set of 
occultists may be compared the famous “ testimonial ” 
to Mrs. Glover (Eddy) which for two years was put in 
the columns of The Christian Science Journal along 
with accounts of alleged cures of an alphabet of dis- 
eases. This “ testimonial” reads: “‘ The sound truths 





? Reply to James W. Barrett, The Literary Review, Nov. 26, 1921, 


78 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
: Lit 


which you announce and. sustain“by faith of the im- 
mortal life give to your work the seal of inspiration— 
reaffirm in modern phrase the Christian Revelation. 
In times like ours, so sunk in sensualism, I hail with 
joy any voice that-speaks an assured word for God and 
Immortality. And my joy is heightened the more the 
- words are of woman’s divinings.” 

Such are the well known phrases which have been so 
widely exploited by the faithful. When Daniel Spof- 
ford, who helped Mrs. Eddy financially to get out the 
first edition of Science and Health, asked Alcott if they 
might use his letter, Alcott replied that they might do 
so if it were used “‘ with discretion.” * The discretion 
was so great that the famous phrases appeared not only 
in the columns of The Christian Science Journal, but 
five years later are found at the end of an advertise- 
ment for Science and Health which began with a testi- 
monial from some nonentity who claimed to have cured 
‘consumption, rheumatism, dyspepsia and piles.” 

The giving of this high praise is more or less dis- 
counted by the fact that the sage of Concord was never 
known to refuse an invitation to speak before any 
group of thinkers, whatever the subject they might be 
interested in. We find reported in his diaries that he 
gave addresses before girls’ schools, Plato Clubs, 
Liberal Clubs, the New England Women’s Club of 
Transcendentalism, Theological schools, intermediate 
schools, Reading Circles, Emerson Reading Circles, 
Logic Clubs, Radical Clubs, the Ladies’ Educational 
Association, and last, but not least, the Ladies’ Physio- 
logical Club. 

In this connection it is pertinent to note what 





§ Daniel H. Spofford to the Writer, September, 1921. 


ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 79 


Thoreau said of Alcott. He called him the “ Great 
Expecter,” who, with “his hospitable intellect em- 
braces children, beggars, insane and scholars, and 
entertains the thought of all.” * So it is somewhat dis- 
appointing to find that the most talented of any of our 
neo-platonists made little discrimination in the class of 
persons for whom he uttered his Orphic Sayings. In 
his Lyceum tours, and especially in his trips to the 
west, he was known as “ the Wise Man from the East,” 
and there addressed the really thoughtful and compe- 
tent. Alcott was the inspirer towards philosophic study 
of William T. Harris and had much to do in stimulating 
the activities of the St. Louis School of Hegelian ideal- 
ism. He was also the nominal but revered head of the 
Concord School of Philosophy. This is one side of the 
picture. There is another. It may be considered a 
veritable lapse of the soul that he should fall from his 
high estate and take up with the kind of people he 
occasionally did. Perfectly unsophisticated in worldly 
affairs, Alcott was at the same time perfectly open to 
the solicitations of any class of visionaries. All this 
goes to explain the fact that soon after writing the 
oft-quoted letter of January 17, 1876, Alcott visited 
Mrs. Glover at Lynn. 

In this connection, also, a statement has been made 
which needs verification, and that verification is lack- 
ing. That Emerson had heard of Science and Health 
and by inference thought highly of its author is im- 
probable. At that time the “sage of Concord ” had 
largely lost his memory and could scarcely recall the 
events of the day before. This was due to the fact that 
four years before he had suffered a mental breakdown 





4Sanborn, Recollections, 2. 466. 


ke 


80 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


which was brought about by the fire in his house with 
attendant exposure and shock.® From all this one 
judges that Alcott, the enthusiast, was apt to attribute 
to others the opinions which he held himself. Indeed, 
only two years before, he states that Emerson agreed 
with him as to the value of a certain curious pamphlet, 
“The Anesthetic Revelation, and the Gift of Philos- 
ophy,” © adding that its author was “a man with a 
mystic tinge, very dear to me.” * 
Thus do the Diaries of Alcott exhibit the perfect en- 
thusiast, listening, as he said, with “ not indocile ears ” 
for the faintest echo of occult lore, whether it came 
from the heights of Parnassus or from Horticultural 
Hall. 
All was grist to Alcott’s metaphysical mill, and un- 
less we allow for the uncritical catholicity of his mind 
we shall fail to understand why he put apparently in 
the same grade the fine flour of Neo-Platonism and 
the middlings of Eddyite ‘‘ divine metaphysics.” 
So much for the personality of the venerable idealist. 
Now for the particular place in which he met the 
alleged “‘ discoverer.”’ From a cursory examination of 
Alcott’s manuscripts a certain Christian Science investi- 
_ gator once made the preposterous claim that Alcott was 
_a Christian Scientist. This is the same old game of 
putting the chronological cart before the philosophical 

horse. But here the Diaries themselves disprove this 
‘absurdity. Alcott went to Lynn in 1876 to address 
- Mrs. Glover’s class of scientific metaphysicians, but 
that was by no means his first visit to the town where 

he had not only several connections but many friends. 





° Information’ from Dr. Edward Emerson, Jan. 3, 1922. 
*By Bejamin Paul Blood, Amsterdam, New York, 1874. 
7 Alcott Diary, June 1, 1874. 


ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 81 


Among these friends was Dr. Jones, the Quaker, Jacob 
Bachelder, the librarian, and the Reverend Samuel 
Robinson, who came later to reside in Concord. From 
Alcott’s relations with these three men one can gain a 
glimpse into the upper intellectual circles of their town. 

We may here interpolate the suggestion that it was 
Mr. Bachelder who probably put into the Lynn library 
those occult works, especially Alcott’s Orphic Sayings 
and the Tablets which furnished the source, font, and 
inspiration for most of the metaphysics that exist in 
Science and Health.’ 

But the last of the triumvirate of Lynn worthies is 
the most potent to overthrow the grotesque claim that 
Alcottism was Eddyism in disguise. ‘Thirty-six years 
before Mrs. Glover compiled her precious volume in 
the upper room of Lynn, while “ the day star of Divine 
Science ” shone through the window, Alcott had been 
on the scene. In fact he had delivered a series of con- 
versations at the house of the Reverend Samuel Robin- 
son. His titles in some cases are those of the chapter 
headings of Science and Health itself. ‘‘ In referring 
to my Diary of March, 1839,” records Alcott, ‘‘ I find 
my topics were these: Con. I, Doctrine and Concep- 
tion; II. God and Man; III. Matter and Spirit; IV. 
Knowledge and Instinct; V. Family; VI. Memory 
and Hope; VII. Sleep and Dreams; VIII. Piety and 
Impiety; 1X. Probation and Retribution; X. Genesis ; 
XI. Wonder and Worship; XII. Good and Evil.” 





8The Lynn Library, prior to 1875 (the date of the first edition 
of Science and Health), had on its shelves the Dial (1841-1844) 
containing Alcott’s Orphic Sayings; The Boston Commonwealth 
(1863-1864), which published several of Alcott’s Essays later col- 
lected in the Tablets; and Alcott’s Tablets (1868). Information 
from the present librarian of the Lynn Public Library, Mr, Clar- 
ence E, Sherman (Dec, 28, 1921). 


82. THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


As a curious coincidence, if nothing more, we ask 
the reader to compare the list above with the chapter 
headings of the first edition of Science and Health. 
They are these: I. Natural Science; Il. Imposition 
and Demonstration; III. Spirit and Matter; IV. Cre- 
ation; V. Prayer and Worship; VI. Marriage; VII. 
Physiology; VIII. Healing the Sick. From a com- 
parison of the latter captions with the former we can 
understand why Alcott, “the Great Expecter,” as 
Thoreau called him, would welcome the thoughts of 
the prophetess of Lynn. They were the children of 
his own brain coming back to him. Though they wore 
strange clothes he recognised them and took them to 
his bosom. 

It is now our task to strip off these clothes and find 
in the Eddyite ‘‘ spiritual ” science the essentials and 
sometimes the very words of Alcott the inspirer. Here 
we can almost believe in the old Puritan doctrine of a 
Providence that ‘‘ works in a mysterious way, his won- 
ders to perform,” when we read the statement of Mrs. 
Eddy that ‘‘ God has been graciously fitting me during 
many years for the reception of a final revelation of the 
absolute principle of scientific mind healing.” 

There is little use arguing about actual dates of con- 
tact between the two writers unless there be a strong 
prior resemblance between their thoughts. But in 
making the comparison we owe certain apologies to 
Alcott. Emerson, it is true, criticised the Orphic Say- 
ings as being written in a style which plays with the 
thought, a style “ to balk and disappoint expectations, 
to use a coarse word ’tis all stir and no go.” ® But even 
with these faults Alcottism was a genuine form of Neo- 





°F. B. Sanborn, Recollections, 2.490. 


ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 83 


Platonism and Eddyism, an aberrant form. The aber- 
rations were obviously caused by Mrs. Eddy’s lack of 
logic. A mind that can reason that the converse of a 
proposition is as true as the original proposition is what 
we have a right to call a crooked mind. To argue that, 
because there is “no mind in matter,” “there is no 
matter in mind,” is like saying that because “ all cats 
are animals, all animals are cats.” It is a very poor 
rule that works both ways as a syllogism. Mrs. Eddy 
confuses logic with a play on words and we can infer 
the childish nature of her mind by quoting a palin- 
drome, or real reversible statement. Thus Napoleon 
was said to have. declared, ‘“‘ Able was I ere I saw 
Elba.”’ Now this fanciful declaration not only reads 
backward, but spells backward as well as it does for- 
ward. We offer it as a fit substitute for the famous 
“reversible proposition ’”? Number 4: “ Life, God, om- 
nipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin, disease—Disease, 
sin, evil, death, deny Good, omnipotent God, life.” 7° 
Beside being illogical, Mrs. Eddy is ignorant. Al- 
cott’s system is full of correct classical references; he 
knows the Muses and he knows the gods of old. So 
this part of his system is a closed book to an authoress 
who could derive Adam from the Latin demens and 
Pantheism from the Greek god Pan. All this goes to 
explain the twisted transcendentalism to be found in 
Eddyism. It was not that what went into one ear went 
out of another, but that whatever went in came out in 
a strangely distorted form. Psychologically, Mrs. 
Eddy’s uses of the Orphic Sayings could be compared 
to the well known case of Héléne “ Smith,” studied by 
Professor Flournoy in his book entitled From India to 





* Science and Health (1900), p. 7. 


84 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


the Planet Mars. His subject was a shop girl with an 
ordinary education who claimed, among other things, 
to have been a reincarnation of a princess of India. In 
her automatic writings, produced under hypnoidal con- 
ditions, she not only gave descriptions of ancient India, 
but actually wrote words in Sanscrit. The source of 
these phenomena was a puzzle until Professor Flour- 
noy found out that his subject had once been employed 
in the household of a scholar who had left certain 
Sanscrit texts lying about. These Mademoiselle 
‘“‘ Smith ” had unconsciously registered on her memory 
and years afterwards had brought forth in the form of 
automatic writing. 

Mrs. Eddy’s case is analogous. She, too, went off 
‘into trances and left behind automatic writings.’ In 
all this she was not unique. Like Andrew Jackson 
Davis, the shoemaker’s apprentice, with his “‘ Divine 
Revelation,” she claimed to write under inspiration. 
But as the Poughkeepsie seer, even in his “ superior 
condition,” was once caught repeating passages from a 
book known to be in his possession,’ so we can dis- 
cover a similar procedure in the case of the sibyl of 
Lynn and the writings of Alcott. Of course, admirers 
of the two inspirational writers can claim that great 

“Compare Milmine, p. 66, who gives in facsimile a “spirit” 
letter from Mrs. Eddy’s brother, Albert, to Mrs. Crosby. Milmine 
misinterprets this letter, which warns Mrs. Crosby against Mrs. 
Eddy’s machinations. It is a case of unconscious cerebration or 
more exactly of decentralisation. In the trance state Mrs. Eddy 
could not help giving herself away. See below, Chapter XIII. 

% Compare Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science, p. 230. 
For a similar case, see Science and Health, first edition, p. 272, 
where Mrs. Eddy forgets to rub out a quotation mark at the 
beginning of a passage borrowed from another writer, and then 
goes on as if the whole paragraph were her own. This passage 
begins: “We have no right to assume that individuals have... .” 


Mrs, Eddy then adds her old Portland statement: “That earth 
was hatched from the egg of night was anciently argued.” 


ALCOTT, THE INSPIRER 85 


minds work in the same channel. But when, in the 
case of Alcott and Eddy, both have precisely the same 
views, for example on the mystery of evil, and the one 
view is given long prior to the other, the claim falls flat. 

It may be that there are those who still believe in 
coincidences. But it is more than a coincidence that 
there should be such a series of resemblances between 
Eddyism and Alcottism as we here present. The reader 
is asked to test this method of comparison by reading 
the documents in the next chapter aloud to a third 
party, preferably a Christian Scientist, though the lat- 
ter are cautioned against listening to anything outside 
the official works. The test can best be made by read- 
ing aloud from the two columns at haphazard and try- 
ing to distinguish which is from the Orphic Sayings in 
the Dial and which from the first edition of Science 
and Health, 


IX 
MYSTICISM 


“As to the pretended independent ‘ seers, outsiders of 
Boehme’s revelations,—whose names need not be men- 
tioned,—these are of course not to be admitted into the 
category of the standard theologists, being mere phantas- 
matists or visionaries, and who, though uttering a great 
many good, and to some recondite minds, surprising 
things, say in effect nothing but what is to be found in a 
much more solid and edifying form in the writings of 
ancient classic divines and philosophers.” —CHRISTOPHER 
WALTON To ALCOTT. | 


“When contemplating the majesty and magnitude of 
this query, 1t looked as tf centuries of spiritual growth 
were requisite to enable me to elucidate or to demonstrate 
what I had discovered: but an unlooked-for, imperative, 
call for help, wmpelled me to begin this stupendous work 
at once.’—Mnrs, Eppy. 


N the period when Mrs. Eddy withdrew from 
| society to ponder her mission to mankind we 
know that Alcott was wandering about New 
England in search of the votaries of the occult. The 
significance of his visit to Lynn was that he was invited 
to attend Mrs. Eddy’s class of “ scientific metaphysi- 
cians.” Unless the veiled prophetess had known and 
approved of his writings he would not have been asked 
to unveil the mysteries to that precious little band. So 
he came, he talked, he conquered, and in return for 
this privilege he gave out his sentiments “ to be used 


86 


MYSTICISM 87 


with discretion,’ but what discretion! Published in 
an appendix in the advertisements for Science and 
Health like a testimonial for a patent medicine cure. 

We are here brought to the mystical elements in 
Eddyism. ‘The only parts of Christian Science that 
are philosophically worth examining are these faint 
echoes of a golden past, echoes from that time when 
the interior or hidden life was studied in simplicity of 
mind, was kept to the favoured few, and was never 
degraded by being copyrighted and commercialised. 

While Alcott’s system was built on a sound knowl- 
edge of the ancient authorities, Mrs. Eddy’s was not. 
When Alcott relies on his library of mystic writers and 
quotes with approval from Plotinus of Alexandria, from 
Boehme of Germany, from Cudworth and More of 
England, Mrs. Eddy calls her system “this sacred 
science,” a “ first hand revelation in which unfathom- 
able mind has expressed itself.” But if, as she de- 
clares, ‘‘ Truth came through the person of a New 
England girl,” it is very strange that a New England 
man had already expressed truths so similar that they 
can hardly be told apart. We leave it to the reader, 
then, to make a comparison between Mrs. Eddy’s first 
chapter entitled Natural Science, of 1875, and the 
Orphic Sayings of 1841-1844. 

But before the particular parallels are given there 
should be noted a general resemblance between two 
other statements. The first is Mrs. Eddy’s description 
of her “ discovery,” the second an anticipation of that 
“discovery ” by Alcott some thirty years before. In 
her chapter entitled Recapitulation, Mrs. Eddy de- 
clared herself as follows: 


“When I was given up to die I gained a higher sense of 


88 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Life, a ray from the divine science of being, and it healed 
me. Since then my highest creed is Science, Christianity 
and God. I learned of this sacred science that God is 
Truth and Life, and this Truth and Life, understood 
instead of believed and feared, reveals the ‘strait and 
narrow way that leads to Life,’ that heals the sick and 
casts out error; that all that really is proceeds from 
God, and is harmonious and eternal; that sickness, sin 
and death, being inharmonies, originate not with God, and 
belong not to His government, insomuch as the law of 
God, understood, destroys them.” 


Alongside of this flamboyant statement, made some 
years after the discovery, we put the other statement 
which some might think a prophecy, but others a hint 
from which the seeress of Lynn drew her inspiration. 
In one of his Orphic Sayings, entitled Calculus, Alcott 
declared: 


“We need, what Genitts is unconsciously seeking, and, 
by some daring generalisation of the universe, shall as- 
suredly discover, a spiritual calculus, a novuwm organon, 
whereby nature shall be divined in the soul, the soul in 
God, matter in spirit, polarity resolved into unity; and 
that power which pulsates in all life, animates and builds 
all organisations, shall manifest itself as one universal 
deific energy, present alike at the outskirts and centre of 
the universe, whose center and circumference are one; 
omniscient, omnipotent, self-subsisting, uncontained, yet 
containing all things in the unbroken synthesis of its 
being.” 


We give the following quotations at length because 
of the difficulty of procuring the first edition of Science 
and Health; for example, the Boston Public Library 
contained two copies. One of these is now “ reported 


MYSTICISM 89 


‘lost,” the other is in a safe. 


We utilise here a copy 


presented by Mrs. Glover (Eddy) herself to a certain 
library. . . . The quotations from The Dial may be 
found in the reprint made by the Rowfant Club, Cleve- 


land, 1901-1902. 


Science and Health 


We learn from science 
mind is universal, the first 
and only cause of all that 
really is; also, that the real 
and unreal constitute what 
is, and what is not; that 
the real is Spirit, which is 
immortality, and the unreal 
matter, or mortality. The 
real is Truth, Life, Love 
and Intelligence, all of 
which are Spirit, and Spirit 
is God, and God, Soul, the 
Principle of the universe 
and man. Spirit is the only 
immortal basis. Matter is 
mortality; it has no Prin- 
ciple, but is change and 
decay, embracing what we 
term sickness, sin, and 


death. (10, 11) 


Mind, the basis of all 
things, cannot cross its 
species, and produce mat- 
ter. But in order to clas- 
sify mind that is real, from 
belief, or the unreal, we 
name one mind, and the 
other matter; but recollect 
matter is but a belief, and 


Orphic Sayings 
Life eludes all scientific 
analysis. Each organ and 
function is modified in sub- 
stance and varied in effect, 
by the subtile energy which 


pulsates throughout the 
whole economy of things, 
spiritual and _ corporeal. 


The each is instinct with 
the all; the all unfolds and 
reappears in each. Spirit 
is all in all. God, man, 
nature, are a divine syn- 
thesis, whose parts it is im- 
piety to sunder. (XXXIII. 
Each and All) 

There is neither void in 
nature, nor death in spirit, 
—all is vital, nothing God- 
less. . . . Sense beholds 
life never,—death always. 
(VII. Immanence) 


Solidity is an illusion of 
the senses. To faith, noth- 
ing is solid; the nature of 
the soul renders such fact 
impossible. Modern chem- 
istry demonstrates that 
nine-tenths of the human 
body are fluid, and sub- 
stances of inferior order in 


90 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Science and Health 


mind the only reality. Er- 
ror can only be defined as 
belief, which is not mind, 
but illusion. The belief. 
that Life, Substance, and 
Intelligence are where and 
what they are not, is error. 
Spirit is the understanding 
and possession of ‘Truth, 
Life and Intelligence. Be- 
lief and understanding 
never mingle, more than 
matter and Spirit; one 1s 
error, the other Truth. All 
discord is what we term 
matter, and discord is mor- 
tal, nothingness; harmony 
is real and immortal, for it 
belongs to Spirit, is pro- 
duced by it and proceeds 
from it. Immortal mind is 
Spirit, an utterance of 
Soul proceeding from har- 
mony and immortality. 
The mind, that we name 
matter, is the so-called 
mind of the body, and 
what is termed sinful and 
mortal man; but this man 
is a myth, neither mind nor 
matter, but a belief that 
embraces all error. (13) 


Will man lose his iden- 
tity in conscious infinitude 
of being? . . . Life is prin- 


Orphic Sayings 


lesser proportion. Matter 
is ever pervaded and agi- 
tated by the omnipresent 
soul. All things are in- 
stinct with spirit. (XXXVI. 


Flux) 


Divined aright, there is 
nothing purely organic; all 
things are vital and inor- 
ganic. ‘The microscope is 
developing this sublime 
fact. Sense looking at the 
historic surface beholds 
what it deems matter, yet 
is but spirit in fusion, 
fluent, pervaded by her 
own immanent vitality and 
trembling to organise it- 
self. Neither matter nor 
death are possible: what 
seem matter and death are 
sensuous impressions, 
which, in our sanest mo- 
ments, the authentic in- 
stinct contradicts. The 
sensible world is spirit in 
magnitude, outspread be- 
fore the senses for their 
analysis, but whose syn- 
thesis is the soul herself, 
whose prothesis is God. 
Matter is but the confine of 
spirit limning her to sense. 


(XLI. Spirit and Matter) 


The insatiableness of her 
desires is an augury of the 
soul’s eternity. Yearning 


MYSTICISM 91 


Science and Health 


ciple, and not person.... 
In science we learn that 
there is but one God, also 
that God is Spirit; hence 
there is but one Spirit... . 
Spirit [is] the only sub- 
stance because it is Intelli- 
gence—comprehending the 
universe and man in the 
harmony of being. ..-. 
Soul is not in body, it is 
the unlimited Intelligence, 
impossible to limit, and the 
immortality that mingles 
not with mortality; as light 
and darkness are opposites, 
so are Spirit and matter, 
without the least affinity. 


The line of demarkation 
between the Principle that 
is Intelligence and Life, 
and the belief of Life and 
Intelligence in person, is 
the boundary between be- 
lief and science, otherwise, 


between error and truth. 
(20) 


Spiritual, in contradis- 
tinction to personal sense 
reveals man idea... thus 
secure from chance and 
change he is harmonious 


Orphic Sayings 


for satisfaction, yet ever 
balked of it from temporal 
things, she still prosecutes 
her search for it. . .. She 
would breathe life, organise 
light; her hope is eternal; 
a never-ending, still-begin- 
ning quest of the Godhead 
in her own bosom; a per- 
petual effort to actualise 
her divinity in time. (IX. 
Aspiration ) 

Every soul feels at times 
her own possibilities of be- 
coming a God; she cannot 
rest in the human, she as- 
pires after the Godlike. 
(X. Apotheosis) 

It is the perpetual effort 
of conscience to divorce the 
soul from the dominion of 
sense. (XV. Identity and 
Diversity ) 


Life, in its initial state, 
is synthetic; then feeling, 
thought, action are one and 
individual. But 
thought disintegrates and 
breaks this unity of soul. 

(XLVI) 


As the man, so his God: 
God is his idea of excel- 
lence; the complement of 
his own being. (III. Hope) 


92 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Science and Health 


and eternal. . . . Man is 
the complex idea of God, 
hence, they cannot be sepa- 
rated. (24, 25) 


Soul is the only living 
consciousness, and Soul 
neither sins, nor suffers; it 
is immortal, and error is 
mortal. (1, 27) 


... God is Principle, 
. substance and Life, 

hence man is but the image 
and likeness of these; ... 
therefore, man is not mat- 
ter, but idea. .°. . Sub- 
stance, Life and Intelli- 
gence all must be outside 
matter. (30) 

Infinite Soul embraces 
perfect understanding, the 
light that neither diminishes 
nor increases. ... Soul is 
self-existent and _ eternal. 


(31) 


God and man are Prin- 
ciple and idea. ... Then 
what can separate man 
from harmony and immor- 
tality? (33) 


Orphic Sayings 


That which holds itself 
above all sin, impeccable, 
immaculate, immutable, the 
deity of the heart, the con- 
science of the soul. (XVI. 
Conscience) 


Man is a rudiment and 
embryon of God: eternity 
shall develop in him the 
divine image. (XXXIX. 


Embryon) 


So shall your soul be 
filled with light, and God 
be an indwelling fact,—a 
presence in the depths of 
your being. (I. Nature) 


Organisations are mor- 
tal; the seal of death is 
fixed on them even at birth. 
... Only the children of 
the soul are immortal. 
(XXXVIII. Time) 


All life is eternal; there 
is none other; and all un- 
rest is but the struggle of 
the soul to reassure herself 
of her inborn immortality ; 


MYSTICISM 93 


Science and Health 


God is the Soul of man 
and the only Intelligence, 
Life or Substance ; and man 
is the reflex shadow of 
God. 

Which shall be substance, 
the erring, mutable and 
mortal, or the changeless, 
unerring or immortal[ ?] 

(39) 


There is neither growth, 
‘maturity nor decay to Soul ; 
these are the mutations of 
sense, the clouds before 
Soul that we call substance, 
but they are only vapour. 

(40) 


Man is the idea of his 
Principle, and only as the 
image and likeness of In- 
telligence and Life, sub- 
stance and Spirit, is he be- 
yond the reach of death, in 
the science of being, where 
nothing can harm or de- 
stroy him; of that which is 
materialised it can only be 
said, “dust thou art and 
unto dust shalt thou re- 
turn.” (52) 


Gender is Principle and 
not person, and man is 


Orphic Sayings 


to recover her lost intuiting 
of the same, by reason of 
her descent amidst the lusts 
and worship of the idols of 
flesh and sense. Her dis- 
comfort reveals her lapse 
from innocence; her loss of 
the divine presence and 
favour. Fidelity alone shall 
insaturate the Godhead in 
her bosom. (XI. Discon- 
tent) 


The worldling, living to 
sense, is identified with the 
flesh; he dwells amid the 
dust and vapours of his 
own lusts, which dim his 
vision and obscure the 
heavens wherein the saint 
beholds the face of God.- 
(VIII. Mysticism) 


The pure unfallen soul is 
above choice. Her life is 
unbroken, synthetic; she is 
a law to herself, and finds 
no lusts in her members. 
(XIII. Choice) 


The grander my concep- 
tion of being, the nobler 


94 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Science and Health 


shadow and not substance ; 
why he is mortal to per- 
sonal sense, is because it 
supposes him substance, 
Life and Intelligence. Mor- 
tal man is but a dream of 
Intelligence, substance and 
Life in matter, not the man 
of God, but the man of 
man, and shadow of shad- 
ows, therefore he reflects 
no Principle, and is with- 
out any real basis. To per- 
sonal sense science is pre- 
sumptive logic ; nevertheless 
it reveals Truth; the ulti- 
matum of being corrobo- 
rates the statement that 
man is shadow and not 
substance; we are daily 
hastening to this proof, and 
must reach its recognition 
to gain immortality, for the 
Truth of man alone makes 
him immortal, (57) 


Enough of these feeble paraphrases. 


Orphic Sayings 


my future. There can be 
no sublimity of life without 
faith in the soul’s eternity. 
Let me live superior to 
sense ... and I shall ex- 
perience my divinity. 
Innocent, the soul is 
quick with instincts of un- 
erring aim; then she knows 
by intuition what lapsed 
reason defines by labour- 
ious inference. sy 
reasoning the soul strives 
to recover her lost intu- 
itions, groping amidst the 
obscure darkness of sense 
by means of the fingers of 
logic for treasures present 
alway and available to the 
eye of conscience. (XIV. 
Instinct and Reason) 


Mrs. Eddy 


manifestly had before her Alcott’s metaphysics, but 
she was so ignorant of the very meaning of that word 
that she speaks of it in the plural: “‘ Metaphysics lead 
into all truth, they enlarge the capacity for good,” she 
declares. For those who care to carry the parallel 
further her chapter on Creation will furnish a rich 
field for the comparative method. There, for example, 
she enlarges on the thoughts suggested by Alcott. We 
mentioned first his doctrine of Calculus and “ the 
deific energy whose center and circumference are one.” 


MYSTICISM 95 


To this we can add the saying on Genesis where Alcott 
speaks of “creation, globe and orb.” This suggests 
the very title and the very thoughts of Mrs. Eddy’s 
chapter where she explains that “ Life is spherical, 
without beginning or end. The form of the globe 
typifies it.” 

We conclude, then, that such parallels in thought, 
and such repetitions of Alcottian phrases distinctly dis- 
count the claims of Mrs. Eddy that ‘“ We have made 
the discovery through spiritual sense that the body of 
soul embraces the universe and that man is the full idea 
of life, substance and intelligence,” 


xX 
DIVINE SCIENCE 


“ Not one of our printed works was ever copied or 
abstracted from the published or from the unpublished 
writings of anyone. Throughout our publications of 
metaphysical healing or Christian Science, when writing 
or dictating them, we have given ourselves to contempla- 
tion wholly apart from the observation of the material 
senses, to look upon a copy would have distracted our 
thought from the subject. . . . No human pen or tongue 
taught the Science contained in this book. Its a fact that 
outssde the Scriptures and this textbook the compound 
proposttions of Christian Science, that ‘ God is Spirit’ and 
that ‘Spirit is the only life, substance and intelligence’ 
cannot be found.’—Mrs. Eppy, in Science and Health, 
Preface, 1884. 


“God is Spirit; man is embraced and contained in that 
IS. If you seek for aught beside, your aught becomes 
naught.”—At,cort, Conversation, 1871. 


“Mrs. Glover, I infer, was a great reader, but did not 
make herself conspicuous through the fact.’—Dantet, H. 
SPOFFORD TO THE WRITER. 


Sayings appeared too early to affect Mrs. Eddy. 
When they were published, in the forties, she 
was as yet unconscious of her mission to mankind. 
But The Dial could have easily come within her reach, 
as did later the rather rare essay of Agassiz on the 
Classification of Species, from which she quotes to 


96 


[Ms objection may be raised that the Orphic 


DIVINE SCIENCE 97 


uphold her doctrine of sexless generation. However, 
leaving out the early expression of Alcott’s thoughts, 
there remain two other presentations of his doctrines, 
the one in a weekly paper, the other in a small book. 
Alcott’s Essays on such subjects as Woman, Friend- 
ship, Sex and Old Age appeared in the Boston Com- 
monwealth of 1863-1864," and with some of the earlier 
Orphic Sayings were subsequently embodied in the 
Tablets. The latter volume was published in 1868, 
two years before Mrs. Eddy copyrighted her first book, 
The Science of Man, as a real exposition of “ the Un- 
derstanding of Christianity or God.” ” 

Excluding The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 
Alcott’s philosophy appeared in three different places. 
This gives three good chances that Mrs. Eddy read and 
admired these oracular outpourings. But the internal 
evidence shows that the authoress had before her the 
Orphic Sayings as they appeared in The Dial, for her 
first chapter, as well as subsequent chapters, contain 
not only peculiar technical terms like absorption and 
emanation, harmony and intuition, but her chapter 
headings and Alcott’s titles are sometimes the same. 
However, in making this comparison we owe another 
apology to the philosopher of Fruitlands. Eddyism is 
Alcottism reflected in a muddy mind. When he is 
clear, she is obscure. When he is stimulating, she is 
baffling. Yet there is a certain common drift. The 
current of her thought is towards that goal of Principle 





1“The Tablets was copyrighted in 1868; nearly half was made 
up of the essays I had printed (1863) in The Boston Common- 
wealth.” (Sanborn and Harris, 2.254.) 

2 The Science of Man as we now have it is nothing but a com- 
pilation made up of the plates of the third edition of Science and 
Health, so hastily done that the pages are not printed in their 
numerical order, 


98 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


or Oneness which Alcott had ever in mind. Both spoke 
of the lapsed soul, but when they portray the return 
of that soul, he is poetic, she prosy. “The Orphic 
poet sings,” as Emerson expressed it. Thus in his 
philosopheme on Person, Alcott inserts the lines 
beginning: 


“When thou approachest to the One, 
Self from thyself thou first must free.” 


The true poet, the true ascetic appear in these ideas, 
but when the veiled prophetess of Lynn had these 
Orphic Sayings before her, she made but a sorry para- 
phrase of them. The notions are largely similar, the 
vocabulary almost identical, but the touch of the artist 
in words is entirely lacking. Where Mrs. Eddy re- 
peats the same set of phrases and tags of thought with 
the monotony of slugs coming out of a linotype ma- 
chine, Alcott embellishes his thought with an infinite 
variety of illustrations, with telling allusions to classical 
antiquity and medizval speculation, in short, with the 
hand of a master in mystic lore. 

Mrs. Eddy, evidently attracted by the strange title 
Orphic Sayings, attempts the role of a sibyl. But 
where Alcott occasionally gave forth utterances which 
Emerson thought significant enough to be embodied in 
his Essays, Mrs. Eddy talks like a trance medium, the 
language of whose last séance is indistinguishable from 
that of the first. The earliest of these séances with 
herself we have studied, and one sitting is almost too 
much. If the reader be further interested he can make 
the test for himself. It makes little difference whether 
the chapter is called Natural Science or Spirit and 
Matter or Creation. All are practically made up of 


DIVINE SCIENCE 99 


the same old thoughts and phrases over and over again: 
Life is Principle, Principle is Light; Spirit is the only 
Substance, the only Substance is Spirit; there is no 
intelligence in matter, and no matter in intelligence,— 
you can find these postulates and these patent revers- 
ibles in the first chapter, the middle chapter and the 
last chapter of the official text-book. The effect is 
almost hypnotic both upon the mind of a critical as 
well as a credulous reader. The repetition of monoton- 
ous sounds is the easiest way of bringing the subject 
into a comatose mental condition. This is known to 
the medicine man with his tomtom and to the leader of 
the jazz band with his syncopations. Now, this trick 
of wretched iteration was employed by Mrs. Eddy, 
first on herself, and then on her followers. She is so 
fond of her patent reversibles—such as ‘“‘ There is no 
Mind in matter, no matter in Mind ”—that she actually 
comes to employ a sort of shorthand formula such as: 
“There is no death in truth and vice versa”; Soul is 
not personal sense and vice versa.” 

Now, if this kind of doctrinal dope worked upon the 
leader in inducing an hypnoidal state conducive to her 
inspirational writing, it could be utilised to induce in 
her followers a cognate hypnoidal state conducive to 
self-healing. Almost anyone can induce mental cathar- 
sis by repeating the formula for a “ treatment ” with 
its sing-song reiterations: “‘ Spirit is immortal truth, 
matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal, 
matter the unreal and temporal.” 

Alcott has been called a sower of transcendental wild 
oats. It is certainly a queer crop which sprang up from 
his Orphic Sayings. These Sayings were a cause of 
astonishment and even of hilarity in Boston drawing- 
rooms and met with a number of derisive paraphrases, 


100 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


even as far west as Cincinnati. But the worst cari- 
cature was Eddyism. In the attempt to adopt, the 
result was to distort. The words are the words of . 
Bronson, the philosopher, but when the hand of the 
Reverend Mary rearranged them the effect is ludicrous 
in the extreme. 

As a genuine piece of metaphysics William T. 
Harris, the Hegelian, praised the Alcottian system as 
stating all the great doctrines of Gnosticism and Neo- 
Platonism with great felicity. Now, this system was 
taken hold of by Mrs. Eddy and pulled out of shape. 
The first violent wrench given to it was in a false 
logical conversion. Alcott as an idealist might say, and 
did say, that there was no matter in mind, but he could 
not say that there was no mind in matter. He was an 
idealist, but not an illusionist. Matter to him was 
real, but only in the sense of a far-flung emanation of 
spirit, the outermost ring thrown off from the central 
source of spiritual light. This made matter in a sense 
a shadow projected by spirit across space; it did not 
make it a phantom, an absolute unreality, “an error 
of mortal mind.” Yet if this be a discovery it is a 
chance discovery, due not to good authorities like 
Berkeley, the Irish idealist, but to bad logic like hypo- 
thetical reversibles—“ the vice versas” of the Eddyite 
mind, to employ that manner of speaking. 

With the exception of Wiggin, Mrs. Eddy’s literary 
adviser and occasional sermon-writer, the Christian 
Science leaders are quite at sea as to Berkeley. Thus 
Alfred Farlow declares that the Irish idealist taught 
that “‘ external objects have no existence save as sub- 
jective ideas.” He adds as his own comment, quite in 
the style of Mrs. Malaprop, ‘‘ Matter, whatever may 


* Sanborn and Harris, 2.618. 





DIVINE SCIENCE 101 


be its constituency (sic) does not belong to the heav- 
enly or spiritual state.” * But for a real gem of thought 
we should ever have recourse to the President of the 
Massachusetts Metaphysical College, who writes as 
follows to a disciple: “‘ The little fishes in my fountain 
must have felt me when I stood silently beside it, for 
they came out in orderly line to the rim where I stood. 
Then I fed these sweet little thoughts, that, unfearing 
me, sought their food. ... With love, Mother, M. 
B. Eddy.” ® 

Except for the qualities of style and the correct use 
of technical phrases it is often hard to distinguish be- 
tween the extreme statements of Alcott and the extreme 
statements of Mrs. Eddy. But almost enough has 
been made of this comparative study. The reader may 
amuse himself by comparing the next chapter in 
Science and Health, entitled Creation, with what Alcott 
has to say on Generation and Corruption, on Nature, 
and on Flux, the latter beginning: “ Solidity is an 
iliusion of the senses,” and ending with the statement 
that “ All things are instinct with spirit.” ° But there 
remains one chapter in Science and Health which has 
a strange significance, besides an uncanny likeness to 
Alcott’s Orphic Saying on Organisation. We quote this 
here at length in order to compare it later with Mrs. 
Eddy’s kindred views on marriage. Says Alcott: 
“Possibly organisation is no necessary function or 
mode of spiritual being. The time may come, in the 
endless career of the soul, when the facts of incarna- 
tion, birth, death, descent into matter and ascension 
from it, shall comprise no part of her history.” ‘ 

“Christian Science Journal, 1904, p. 8. 

® Tbid., 17.801. 


® Dial, July, 1840. Orphic Sayings XXXII, XXXV, XXXVI. 
* Dial, July, 1840. XL. Orphic Sayings. 





102 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


The parallel passage in Science and Health is as fol- 
lows: “‘ The time cometh when marriage will be a union 
of hearts; and again, the time cometh when there will 
be no marrying or giving in marriage, but we shall be 
as the angels; the Soul rejoicing in its own mate 
wherein the masculine Wisdom and feminine Love are 
embraced in the understanding.” ® 





® Science and Health (first ed.), p. 322. 


XI 
DEMONOLOGY 


“The high gods come and go but demons remain.” 
—F Razer, The Golden Bough. 


“The chain of reasoning in primeval man—the first 
theory in medicine—was only a short one, since the limita- 
tions of his imagination provided him with no standard 
of comparison outside his own individuality; primitive 
thought saw in every illness not readily susceptible of ex- 
planation, where the sequence of effect upon cause was 
not immediate—as in most. illnesses—the influence of a 
stronger malevolent will, of a demoniac power.’ 

—NeEvuBuURGER, History of Medicine. 


“Some years ago, the history of one of our young 
students, as known to us and many others, diverged into 
a dark channel of sts own, whereby the unwise young man 
reversed our metaphysical method of healing, and sub- 
verted his mental power apparently for the purposes of 
tyranny peculiar to the individual.” 

—Mrs. Eppy, Demonology. 


N her toyings with theosophy we find Mrs. Eddy 
influenced by a wind from the east. And we dis- 
cern further cases of her being affected by the 

cosmic weather. There is a kind of metaphysical 
meteorology in her attitude towards what she called 
malicious animal magnetism, or what might also be 
called a system of hate waves. This doctrine of demon- 
ology is the obverse side of divine science, a reversed 
statement with a vengeance. If healing could be done 


103 


104 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


at a distance, why not harm? The question was asked 
and answered in a preliminary form in the earliest 
edition of Science and Health and carried to such an 
excess In the next that in subsequent editions it was 
withdrawn upon the advice of Mrs. Eddy’s literary 
adviser, the Reverend James H. Wiggin. The subject 
was so preposterous that when the charge of ‘“‘ mental 
malpractise”’? was brought by Mrs. Eddy, in.Salem 
itself, the ancient home of witchcraft, it was thrown out 
of court. 

We shall give the preliminary account with its veiled 
references to the alleged perpetrator; then the ex- 
panded account with some of the curious details of the 
court proceedings. But before that it is well to make 
a comparison with similar views held by Quimby and 
the mesmerists. M. A. M., or malicious animal mag- 
netism, is first described by Mrs. Eddy as a mere form 
of mesmerism, alien and hostile to her own metaphysics 
with its beneficent form of absent treatment. But as 
absent treatment was obviously derived from Quimby, 
who in turn got it from the mesmerists, the whole thing 
forms a vicious circle in reasoning. 

Here we can make a three-fold comparison and see 
how the three sets of belief can be telescoped the one 
into the other. As Podmore says, magnetic, odylic and 
other imponderable effluences formed the foundation of 
the mesmerists’ creed in 1840-1850; this included some 
connection between the nervous system of the experi- 
menter and that of the percipient or sensitive; while 
the higher phenomena of the mesmerists ranged from 
community of sensation to travelling clairvoyance.' 
Now, it will be recalled that Quimby did not deny the 





*Podmore, Mesmerism and Christian Science, p. 168. 


DEMONOLOGY (105 


phenomenon of mesmerism, but included among the 
“higher senses” of the human spirit “the mind to 
mind propagation of human thought,” and the possi- 
bility of the transference of symptoms from one 
person to another. As he said in his World of the 
Senses: “As thought is always changing, so man is 
always throwing off particles or thoughts and receiv- 
ing others.” ? 

Inheriting from Quimby this welter of occult beliefs, 
it is not surprising that Mrs. Eddy could convert what 
had been employed as a healing principle into a prin- 
ciple of destruction. Quimby suffered the pains of 
others vicariously, and suffered them stolidly as part 
of his healing practise. ‘“‘ You féel a pain. I feel it 
with you,” he was wont to say.* Mrs. Eddy also 
underwent this transfer of symptoms, but was fright- 
ened thereby. Her earliest letters to Quimby disclose 
her agitation in receiving “dyspepsia and constipa- 
tion”? of Miss jarvis and the constant ‘“ desire to 
smoke” from nephew Albert. In 1875 she com- 
plained: ‘‘The only way I can save myself is to 
get away from this atmosphere of mind or the minds 
of the sick.” All this is referred to in the third 
edition of Science and Health as follows: “In years 
past we suffered greatly for the sick when healing 
them.” 4 

Now, the case of Mrs. Eddy, as a well known psy- 
chologist has phrased it, is the case of a nervous inva- 
lid with a highly irritable constitution becoming a 
chronic victim to delusions of persecution.2 What was 





? Dresser, iets Manuscripts, p. 242. 

* Thid., p. 

‘ Tbid. p. 337, 

° Joseph Jastrow, The Psychology of Conviction, p. 203, New 
York, 1918. 


106 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


easier than for this hysteric personality, less than a 
decade after these experiences, to utilise them in ex- 
planation of the apparent malevolent influence of a 
former student? With these theories and beliefs in 
mind we can now turn to the first account of demon- 
ology which later became developed into Mrs. Eddy’s 
personal devil, a haunting dread to her dying day. 
Here, then, is the strange obverse side of Eddyism. 
To discover such incredible stuff in the nineteenth 
century is like turning up a rotten log, and seeing the 
crawling life underneath: 


“Ques. Does metaphysical science include medication, 
hygiene, mesmerism, or mediumship? 

“Ans. Not one of those is included in metaphysical 
science. What are termed laws of matter yield to the law 
of Mind in metaphysics; drugs and hygiene are opposed 
to the science, and act against its Principle. Drugs are 
inert matter, producing results only through faith in them. 
Mesmerism, manipulation, or mediumship is the right 
hand of humbug or of crime; they are delusions, or 
frauds. When we commenced teaching this science, we 
permitted students to manipulate the head, ignorant that 
it could do harm or hinder Mind, acting in an opposite 
direction, viz., spiritually, while the hands were at work 
and the Mind directing material action. We regret to say 
it was the malpractice and terrible crimes of a young stu- 
dent that called our attention to this question for the first 
time, and placed it in a new moral and physical aspect. 
By thorough examination, we learned that manipulation 
hinders instead of helps mental healing; it also establishes 
a mesmeric condition between patient and practitioner, 
that gives the latter opportunity and power to govern the 
thoughts and actions of his patients in any direction he 
chooses, and with error instead of Truth. 

“ Mesmerism injures the patient, and must always pre- 


DEMONOLOGY 107 


vent a scientific result. The crimes of that student have 
since reached beyond his patients, and, without manipu- 
lating, gone forth on their errands of envy and revenge, to 
draw others into the vortex of ruin, through a mesmeric 
influence known only to himself. Mesmerism is a direct 
appeal from error to error, diametrically opposed to meta- 
physical science, or the power of Soul over sense and 
Truth over error. Before we discovered, in 1872, the 
malpractice aforesaid, our convictions had been that it 
required the consent of the individual to be affected by 
mesmerism, and we knew that it was impossible to harm 
anyone with our system of metaphysics, therefore we had 
given no thought to the subject of a counteracting mental 
malpractice, and had to meet it unprepared. The power 
of Truth over error must settle this question, as it has 
done all others when the reward of their hands shall be 
given them. 

“We now understand that never another of our stu- 
dents would have gone astray from the strait and narrow 
path but for the continued mesmeric influences of that 
one, employed months, and even years, upon certain indi- 
viduals whom he wished to turn away from Christian 
Science, until at last they yielded to the hidden agent, and 
thought and did as he directed, and he boasted of his 
power over them. Future history will reveal him, and his 
inauguration of a power which, if it be not discovered, is 
fatal to the health, life, or prosperity of the individual. 
The solution of Salem witchcraft has come, and its remedy 
is metaphysics instead of a gibbet. We have discovered 
this year that the mesmerist aforesaid makes people sick, 
and causes them and their doctor to believe that another 
did it, and they can be helped only in accordance with that 
belief. This is to render the metaphysical tests difficult, 
and prevent, if possible, his own detection. He has now 
carried mesmerism to its maximum of crime.” ® 





® Science and Health, (3rd ed.), Recapitulation. 


108 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Christian Science has its criminology and this dis- 
reputable side of the system was aired in the courts. 
We quote but briefly from the suppressed chapter of | 
the third edition of Science and Health, for it takes 
only a few extracts to expose the panic fright and the 
absolute irrationalism of a woman who compared her 
“‘ great discovery ” to that of Newton and gravity and 
of Columbus and America. The last comparison we 
might accept, for when Columbus discovered America 
he discovered savages, and savages, as Garrison re- 
marks, are prone to regard disease as the work of an 
evil spirit, or as something produced by a human 
enemy, possessing supernatural powers.’ 

Mrs. Eddy’s reference to Salem witchcraft is also 
pertinent, for, as Edward Eggleston observes in his 
chapter on The Mental Outfit of the Early Colonists, 
“Men may live in the same time without being intel- 
lectual contemporaries.” ‘Thus there was an entire 
background of lingering beliefs for Mrs. Eddy to draw 
upon. Massachusetts, as the landing place of the Pil- 
grims and Puritans, contained much of their old mental 
furniture, strange crotchets which lay forgotten in the 
nooks and corners of memory. In addition, as a sea- 
faring commonwealth the Bay State harboured sailors, 
and some sailors, as Herman Melville, author of 
Moby Dick, notes, are supposed to possess the gift of 
second sight, and the power to wreak supernatural 
vengeance upon those who offend them. 

In these parts, then, beliefs in malevolent mental 
powers were endemic, latent in the popular mind. But 
this was not all. In writing her chapter on Demon- 
ology, Mrs. Eddy embellished her account with the: 





"FR, H. Garrison, History of Medicine, Chap. I. Philadel- 
phia, 1914. . . 


DEMONOLOGY 109 


very language of another primitive mind, that of 
Quimby. Reference to “seeds” of error taking root 
in the mind, to “ hidden influences ” upon children and 
to “suffering for others ”; phrases like “ the steam of 
physics,” and “ the hue of the individual mind,” were 
lifted almost bodily from the manuscripts of the Port- 
land practitioner. All this may be seen in the follow- 
ing passages from Science and Health: 


“ There is but one conclusion to be had in the case, and 
that is the well-acknowledged fact among scientists, that 
the aforesaid mesmerist is constantly trying to pour this 
base falsehood and groundless fear into the thoughts of 
people merely to injure us, disregarding the bad effect his 
silent arguments have on their health. If these seeds of 
error that he is sowing take root in their minds they will 
spring up and bear fruit after their own kind, even the 
results of error, and make the one sick whose mind he 
impresses with this falsehood. ... 

“ Our Christian students have seen children thrown into 
fits by the hidden influence of mental malpractice, covered 
with virulent humours from the same cause, etc., etc., and, 
until they destroyed the effects of this mesmerism, those 
children could not be cured. But for the skill of Chris- 
tian scientists the slaughter of innocents at this period, and 
by the aforesaid means, would gain more hideous propor- 
tions than it has already done. . . . With the error of his 
own evil nature thrown into the scale, and by reversing 
the arguments of Truth, he attempts to make sickness 
through a silent mental process, even as the metaphysician 
restores health by the mental process. In his mental argu- 
ment to frighten an individual and build up a belief of 
disease, he includes another one, namely, to make that in- 
dividual believe that some one else is doing this, and he 
cannot be healed unless he is treated for the effects that 
individual is supposed to be producing on him, This last 


110 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


infirmity of sin is possible only to mesmerism, and, like all 
the rest, is impossible in metaphysics. Mesmerism can 
make mortals believe a lie, but metaphysics cannot; it can 
only make them unbelieve it. Mesmerism can tell one to 
perform certain acts at stated times, or he will suffer, and 
bring about this infernal result, unless this individual 
knows his remedy... . 

“Tf one decent deed is done by the mental malprac- 
titioner, ten that are terrible are also done; and if one 
disease is allayed by this mental outlaw, another one, more 
dangerous is induced. Mesmerism is practised both with 
and without manipulation ; but the vile deed without a sign 
is also done by the manipulator and mental malprac- 
titioner. . . . The secret mental assassin stalks abroad, 
and needs to be branded to be known in what he is doing. 
Why we take so few students is because of the great 
danger there is in promiscuously teaching metaphysics, or 
the power of mind to do good, lest it abuse that trust, for- 
sake metaphysics, and this developed mental power be- 
comes the steam of physics and the extracts and essences 
OF evil’ e".” 


Our account needs further elucidation, and for this 
we take advantage of a very fine study made by Pro- 
fessor Joseph Jastrow. In this the subject is pushed 
back to its remote historical sources. In its anthro- 
pological kinship, says the critic, the belief is affiliated 
to the widespread superstition (particularly prevalent 
in the Orient and southern Europe) of the evil eye, 
by which is cast a spell on those upon whom it falls, 
when accompanied by malicious intent. “ M. A. M.” 
is a mental form of evil eye. . . . In medizval belief 
there was recognised a white and a black magic. The 
necromancer used the latter to wreak revenge upon 
his enemies, and offered his services to others for this 


DEMONOLOGY 417 


end. In Christian tradition the power was gained by 
compact with the Devil, always regarded as the source 
of illicit influence. The method of acquiring the 
power for evil varies with the cult in which it is in- 
corporated. Its most general formulation is in the 
belief in witchcraft, which has an eventful history, 
spreading sporadically in successive epidemics over 
several centuries. Thus, one phase of “M. A. M.” 
and its central doctrine, reflects the hold of a world- 
wide superstition natural to primitive religions, with 
interesting survivals among less enlightened communi- 
ties of modern times.® 

In claiming that the term “animal magnetism ” 
comes to Mrs. Eddy directly from Mesmer (1734- 
1815) more emphasis should now be laid on the in- 
fluence of Quimby as an intermediary. But from here 
on the story of ‘“ M. A. M.,” as the critic properly 
says, is the story of Mrs. Eddy’s personal relations to 
the belief. So we may take up the subsequent story of 
““M. A. M.” by means of a few brief extracts from Pro- 
fessor Jastrow’s account. The villain referred to in the 
above documents was only partially masked, for he is 
next referred to as ““ R——-d K y.” Now Richard 
Kennedy’s successor was Daniel Spofford, who, in 
1877, in turn came under the ban. He left Mrs. Eddy 
and the latter thus referred to him in the third edition 
of Science and Health: “Since Science and Health 
first went to press, we have observed the crimes of 
another mesmeric outlaw, in a variety of ways, who 
does not as a common thing manipulate, in cases where 
he suddenly attempted to avenge himself of certain 
individuals. . . .”. And the further tale of how Mrs. 








8 The Psychology of Conviction, Chap. VII, N. Y., 1918. 


112 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Eddy, through one of her patients—Miss Lucretia L. 
S. Brown—so worked upon her mind as to bring suit 
against Spofford as a mesmerist is a curiosity in legal 
literature. But the climax is reached in Mrs. Eddy’s 
interview given out on June 5, 1882, regarding the 
alleged cause of the death of Mr. Eddy: ‘“‘ My hus- 
band’s death was caused by malicious mesmerism. Dr. 
Rufus K. Noyes, late of the City Hospital, who held 
an autopsy over the body today, affirms that the corpse 
is free from all material poison, although Dr. Eastman 
still holds to his original belief. I know that it was 
poison that killed him, not material poison, but 
mesmeric poison.” 

One gruesome detail which has been reported and 
corroborated is that Mrs. Eddy was shown the heart 
of her husband after the autopsy was performed. That 
organ, as the physician pointed out, bore marks of 
valvular disease, but of course to the President of the 
Massachusetts Metaphysical College this was all an 
error of mortal mind. 

But the delusion did not stop here. Mrs. Eddy’s 
house in Boston became an exaggerated. castle of 
Otranto. Milmine has gathered together the fantasies 
_ which afflicted the discoverer of divine science. If any- 
thing went wrong it was “M. A. M.,” whether the 
water-pipes froze, or the wash-boiler leaked, or the 
servants were negligent, or the dressmaker was awk- 
ward in fitting, or the mail went astray, or the printer 
or the binder of Science and Health were slow; all was 
set down to the influence of animal magnetism, “ the 
red dragon of this hour.” 

A psychological explanation of all this is now called 
for, and Professor Jastrow gives it in a most skillful 
manner. It should be remembered that in the Next 


DEMONOLOGY 113 


Friend’s suit brought by Mrs. Eddy’s abandoned son 
to test her sanity the case was compromised. The son 
obtained a large sum of money; Mrs. Eddy obtained 
a verdict of sanity. But, as Professor Jastrow points 
out: 


“Mrs. Eiddy’s case has been diagnosed as paranoia on 
the basis of the documents, paranoia being a polite Greek 
term for a marked and limited or one-sided eccentricity 
and irresponsibility. In slang phrase its equivalent may 
be rendered as ‘being a little off’ or ‘cranky.’ Many 
paranoiacs are markedly and dangerously insane; quite as 
many suffer from harmless delusions. Still others are in 
the borderland, and except in certain relations may lead 
outwardly responsible lives. The paranoiacs form the 
most elusive, the most individual, the true élite of the great 
borderland where dwell the eccentric and the ill-balanced. 
Mrs. Eddy’s is the rare but not unique case of a religious 
paranoiac with a following. ‘ Paranoiacs,’ writes one 
authority, ‘form the aristocracy of asylums; indeed, the 
majority of them have little difficulty in avoiding confine- 
ment in them.’ Mrs. Eddy deserves a high place in this 
aristocracy.” ® 





® Jastrow, ibid., pp. 205-206, 


XII 
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 


“One phase of Mrs. Eddys mentality suggests a 
Freudian interpretation. She was very aggressive on the 
matter of the originality of Christsan Science as her 
creation or special revelation. In consequence she denied 
any obligation to Quimby and concealed the evidence of 
her dependence. She quarreled with those who had 
helped her and denounced them. This attitude implies the 
subconscious sense of her dependence, even of her wmferi- 
ority; the insistence becomes a form of compensation for 
her incapacity. It may be traced in her writings, in her 
relations to the Mother Church, in the incidents of her 
life. The delusion of ‘M. A. M? is clearly related to this 
cluster of beliefs; st expresses the ‘fear’ aspect accom- 
panying the self-assertion by way of consolation.” 

—JosEPH Jastrow, Psychology of Conviction. 


doctrines and doings of Mrs. Eddy by a moderate 

use of the theories of psycho-analysis. Here we 
utilise the tempered treatment found in the invaluable 
manual of Dr. Bernard Hart entitled, The Psychology 
of Insanity. This, we take it, may be applied to the 
case of the not quite insane, the neurotic individual 
already portrayed in our chapter on the Personal 
Sources. Most of Mrs. Eddy’s doctrines we have 
traced to the influence of Quimby, of Alcott, of the 
Spiritualists and to a slight extent of the Theosophists. 
But there remains another mass of material which was 
peculiarly her own, and that is the strange and per- 
verted interest in the problems of marriage and sex. 


i114 


ie our final chapters we propose to interpret the 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 115 


Under modern psycho-analysis this insistent interest 
furnishes a veritable key to unlock the mysteries of her 
mind. Both Quimby and Alcott touched on these prob- 
lems, but in a more or less detached fashion; they were 
mere speculations devoid of any specially morbid 
symptoms. With Mrs. Eddy it was quite otherwise. 
Her theories were part of her very life, and were what 
is known as “ rationalisations,” or attempts to justify 
and explain, in a series of afterthoughts, the inner and 
outer aspects of her activities. From her earliest recol- 
lections to her latest obsessions her writings are filled 
with these attempts to put the best foot forward. So 
from her various works subsequent to Science and 
Health we have a series of curious statements written 
to justify her excursions into the borderland problems 
of sex. 

Mrs. Eddy’s official autobiography is found in her 
Retrospection and Introspection, the very title of which 
furnishes testimony to her endeavour to satisfy the 
craving for rationality. At the time of its appearance, 
in 1891, public criticism and perhaps the stings of 
conscience drove the author to vindicate her beliefs 
and actions to both others and herself. These beliefs 
and actions ranged from those early ‘“ voices not our 
own” to her interrupted lectures on Metaphysical 
Obstetrics. 

Hogarth could portray The Rake’s Progress with a 
bold brush, but the subject of Mrs. Eddy’s amourous 
adventures and sentimental journeys is so ticklish that 
it will have to be put in technical language. For this 
purpose we utilise the vocabulary of abnormal psychol- 
ogy and propose to give a review of the interior or 
hidden life of the Massachusetts Mother. This study 
will be based on her Retrospection and Introspection, 


ar 


as 


116 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


on her Miscellaneous Writings and on her remarks in 
the early numbers of The Christian Science Journal, 
numbers which, because of their damaging statements, 
have been practically withdrawn from circulation. 
Finally, corroborative evidence will be sought in the 
testimonies of the witnesses called in the Next Friends 
suit brought by her two sons, one of them being her 
own, the other adopted. 

For the sake of convenience we can take, in order, 
the topics of abnormal psychology, citing such subjects 
as amnesia, automatic writing, delusions, hallucinations 
and obsessions,—in this way covering the entire career 
of Mrs. Eddy, from her almost forgotten childhood to 
that last haunting dread, malicious animal magnetism. 

Amnesia is defined as forgetfulness, ranging all the 
way from ordinary slips of memory to an apparently 
absolute wiping out of the possibility of recalling cer- 
tain events. The first case of amnesia is that cited in 
Mrs. Eddy’s chapter entitled ‘‘ Early Studies.” This 
begins with the statement that “ My father was taught 
to believe that my brain was too large for my body, 
and so kept me much out of school, but I gained book 
knowledge with far less labour than is usually requi- 
site.” Following her alleged intellectual acquisitions 
from Lindley Murray’s Grammar to Latin, Greek and 
Hebrew, there comes the confession that “after my 
discovery of Christian Science, most of the knowledge 
I gained from school books vanished like a dream. 
Learning was so illumined, that grammar was eclipsed. 
Etymology was divine history, voicing the idea of God 
in man’s origin and signification. Syntax was spiritual 
order and unity. Prosody, the song of angels, and no 
earthly or inglorious theme.” 

This fog of forgetfulness may have been a kind of 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 117 


artificial smoke-screen to excuse Mrs. Eddy’s subse- 
quent ignorance of the languages she professed once to 
have known. For example, there was her deriving the 
name Adam from the Latin demon, the latter, of course, 
being a Greek word, and also her convenient way of 
transferring Hebrew directly into English, as when she 
interprets the land of ‘‘ Nod” to mean “ sleep.”” And 
there is another reason that makes the alleged amnesia 
more or less dubious. It is that two years before her 
“‘ early studies ”’ she claimed to have heard “ voices not 
our own.” We have already quoted part of this ac- 
count, but more of it is called for. As she herself 
puts it: 


“Many peculiar circumstances and events connected 
with my childhood throng the chambers of memory. For 
some twelve months, when I was about eight years old, I 
repeatedly heard a voice, calling me distinctly by name, 
three times, in an ascending scale. I thought this was my 
mother’s voice, and sometimes went to her, beseeching her 
to tell me what she wanted. Her answer was always: 
‘Nothing, child! What do you mean?’ Then I would 
say: ‘ Mother, who did call me? I heard somebody call 
‘Mary, three times!’ This continued until I grew dis- 
couraged, and my mother was perplexed. and anxious.” 


The above episode obviously comes under the head 
of hallucinations, which may be roughly defined as 
false sense impressions. For example, the patient sees 
an object which has no real existence, or hears an 
imaginary voice. This definition perfectly fits the 
opening episode in Mrs. Eddy’s miraculous mission. 
‘But just as her amnesia was not a real amnesia, so this 
hallucination was not a real hallucination, but simply a 
story made up to put her on the level with the little 


118 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Samuel of the Old Testament. But Mrs. Eddy, here 
as elsewhere, is clever in covering her tracks. Taken 
by itself, this account would point to an auditory hal- 
lucination undergone by the subject only. But on the 
next page the narrator brings in a witness in order to 
prove that the voice was a real voice. The account 
continues: 


“One day, when my cousin, Mehitable Huntoon, was 
visiting us, and I sat in a little chair by her side, in the 
same room with grandmother, the call again came, so loud 
that Mehitable heard it, though I had ceased to notice it. 
Greatly surprised, my cousin turned to me and said, 
‘Your mother is calling you!’ but I answered not, till 
again the same call was thrice repeated. Mehitable then 
said sharply, ‘ Why don’t you go? Your mother is calling 
you!’ I then left the room, went to my mother, and once 
more asked her if she had summoned me? She answered 
as always before. ... That night, before going to rest, 
my mother read to me the Scriptural narrative of little 
Samuel, and bade me, when the voice called again, to reply 
as he did, ‘ Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.’ The 
voice came; but I was afraid, and did not answer. After- 
ward I wept, and prayed that God would forgive me, re- 
solving to do, next time, as my mother had bidden me. 
When the call came again I did answer, in the words of 
Samuel, but never again to the material senses was that 
mysterious call repeated.” 


We cannot quote this account in full, as it is copy- 
righted. But enough has been given to make us doubt 
one-half of that account. We know that, later in life, 
Mrs. Eddy suffered from visual and tactual hallucina- 
tions. She saw eyes glaring at her in the dark, she felt 
evil spirits manhandling her. It is, therefore, quite 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 119 


probable that she did hear voices, but we cannot agree 
that they were ‘not her own.” Just as one can hear 
an alarm clock by expectant attention before it goes 
off, or turn some vague sounds into persons talking, so 
a more or less neurotic character can fancy that she 
hears supernatural voices. The thing is a common- 
place in religious history and precisely the same thing 
happened to young Joseph Smith, the founder of Mor- 
monism. Little Samuel has certainly had a large 
number of imitators. 

We next turn to automatic writing. In the case of 
auditory hallucination little Mehitable was never put 
on the witness stand and was never interviewed, but 
on this new topic we will find that the chief witness 
was interviewed by Miss Milmine, whose testimony is 
reliable, though her knowledge of the psychological 
meaning of automatic writing is inadequate. In May, 
1864, Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Patterson, went to visit 
her friend and fellow-patient, Mrs. Sarah G. Crosby, 
at Albion, Maine. Mrs. Crosby, who was a stenog- 
rapher in the Maine courts, narrates the following 
peculiar episode: One day she and Mrs. Patterson sat 
together at opposite sides of the same table. Suddenly 
Mrs. Patterson leaned backward, shivered, closed her 
eyes, and began to talk in a sepulchral, mannish voice. 
The voice said that “he” was Albert Baker, Mrs. 
Patterson’s brother. ‘‘ He” had been trying, the voice 
continued, to get control of Mrs. Patterson for many 
days. ‘“‘ He” wished to warn Mrs. Crosby against put- 
ting such entire confidence in Mrs. Patterson... . 
Several times, in the course of this visit, Mrs. Patterson 
went into trances. In one of these, Albert Baker’s 
spirit told Mrs. Crosby that if, from time to time, she 
would look under the cushion of a particular chair, she 


120 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


would find important written. communications from 
him. Mrs. Crosby following the injunction, dis- 
covered now and then a letter. One of these is inter- 
esting chiefly as containing Albert Baker’s spiritistic 
endorsement of P. P. Quimby. The text is as 
follows: 


“Sarah, dear, Be ye calm in reliance on self, amid all 
the changes of natural yearnings, of too keen a sense of 
earth joys, of too great struggle between the material and 
spiritual. Be calm or you will rend your mortal and your 
experience which is needed for your spiritual progress 
lost, till taken up without the proper sphere and your 
spirit trials more severe. This is why all things are work- 
ing for good to those who suffer and they must look not 
upon the things which are seen but upon those which do 
not appear. P. Quimby, of Portland, has the spiritual 
truth of disease. You must imbibe it to be healed. Go to 
him again and lean on no material or spiritual medium. 
In that path of truth I first found you. Dear one, I am 
at present no aid to you although you think I am, but your 
spirit will not at present bear this quickening or ’twill 
leave the body; hence I leave you till you ripen into a 
condition to meet me. You will miss me at first, but 
afterwards grow more tranquil because of it, which is 
important that you may live for yourself and children. 
Love and care for poor sister a great suffering lies before 
her, 


The authenticity of the above account is verified by 
two things. First, a reproduction in facsimile of the 
“spirit message,” and the fact that Milmine entirely 
misconceived its significance. Its production was a 
case of decentralisation or dissociation, when the mind 





+ Milmine, pp. 66-67. 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 121 


loses control of its normal activities or is split up 
into two or more personalities. The fact that Quimby 
is given an unexpected testimonial substantiates the 
well known phenomenon that subconscious confessions 
are often true. For a further explanation of the epi- 
sode we may have recourse to the expert psychologist. 
Dr. Bernard Hart speaks of automatic writing as a 
curious condition which, although occasionally ex- 
hibited by comparatively normal people, attained its 
most perfect development in a form of mental disorder 
known as hysteria. Here, in the first place, the patient 
is quite unaware of what his hand is writing, or even 
of the fact that it is in movement. Secondly, the per- 
sonality has no power to direct what the hand shall 
write, or to alter in any way the train of ideas which it 
is expressing. Automatic writing has played a large 
part in the history of spiritualism and has been attrib- 
uted by supporters of that doctrine to the activity of 
some spiritual being who avails himself of the patient’s 
hand in order to manifest to the world his desires and 
opinions. There is no need, however, to resort to fan- 
tastic hypotheses of this type, and the explanation of 
the phenomenon is comparatively simple. <A dissoci- 
ation has taken place. The field of consciousness is 
divided into two distinct parts, one engaged in conver- 
sation, the other comprising the systems of ideas which 
are finding expression in the automatic writing. Each 
portion carries on complicated mental processes, and 
yet each is not only independent of the other, but 
totally unaware of that other’s existence. The patient’s 
mind seems, in fact, to be split into two smaller minds, 
engaged in two different occupations, making use of 
two distinct sets of memories, and without any relation 
whatever, one to the other. Such a case, therefore, pro- 


122 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


vides us with a most perfect example of dissociation of 
consciousness.” 

Milmine’s comment on the Crosby case of automatic 
writing is that it seems remarkable that “ Albert ” 
should select his own sister through whom to warn 
Mrs. Crosby against her. To the psychologist this is 
not so remarkable, but would be a case where the asso- 
ciation indicates the presence of a mental “ conflict ” 
and acquires the significance of a defensive reaction 
adopted by the mind when confronted with two incom- 
patible systems of ideas. 

Now, under the term “ conflict ” we have a new con- 
ception which enables us to understand much of the 
mental life of the seeress of Lynn. Conflict is defined 
as “a struggle between the complex and the personal- 
ity—complex in turn being described as a dominant 
though subconscious interest, and personality denoting 
all the mental processes—ideas, emotions, desires— 
which do not belong to the complex in question.”” In 
the Crosby case the conflict was solved in a negative 
way,—the mind of Mrs. Eddy ridding itself of the 
emotional tension by avoiding the conflict altogether. 
On the one hand we have the record of Mrs. Eddy’s 
spiritualistic trances; on the other we have her express 
denial: ‘‘ We never were a Spiritualist.” This is the 
first of the methods described by Dr. Hart, and con- 
sists of the simple expedient of preserving both the 
opposing groups of ideas in the mind, while at the same 
time all contact or interaction between them is sedu- 
lously avoided. This is the common mechanism of 
“the logic-tight compartment,” where two spheres of 
action are kept rigidly apart in the mind. 





« * Hart, pp. 42-45. 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 123 


Now, in Mrs. Eddy’s career there is an abundance 
of such negative instances, and it is the psychologist’s 
business to expose these discrepancies in her state- 
ments. She practised the spiritualistic trance and de- 
nied that; she copied the term Christian Science from 
Quimby and denied that; she borrowed from Alcott 
and others and claimed that no other author had 
helped her; she announced that she taught the truth 
‘“‘ without money and without price,” but she charged 
three hundred dollars for six lectures in ‘“‘ Metaphys- 
ical Obstetrics”; she taught this subject until the 
Massachusetts Metaphysical College was closed, and 
yet insisted that the motto of her church was Purity. 

These instances—and there are more of them—illus- 
trate the well known antithesis between precept and 
practice, the common mechanism of the ‘“ logic-tight 
compartment,’’—in a word, dissociation. Now, dissoci- 
ation indicates the presence of a mental conflict, and 
has such varying grades as somnambulism, double per- 
sonality, obsessions, hallucinations and delusions. 

All these grades are illustrated in the career of Mrs. 
Eddy. That she was a somnambulist or sleepwalker is 
a charitable explanation for the fact that, at least once, 
she is recorded as having appeared in mixed company 
in the state of extreme déshabille—to put it mildly. 
Here the “ insufficient clothing dream ” is one of the 
commonest forms of nightmare, which in this case was 
not a mere process of mentality, but of objective actu- 
ality. With this incident should be compared the 
Eddyite theory of the dream which is thus summed up 
in Science and Health: ‘The parent of all human dis- 
cord is the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which origi- 
nated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded 
from and passed into matter.” Now, the “allegory 


124 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


of Adam,” as Mrs. Eddy writes in Christian Healing, 
“when spiritually understood, explains this dream of 
material life, even the dream of the ‘ deep sleep’ that 
fell upon Adam when the spiritual senses were hushed 
by material sense that before had claimed audience 
with a serpent.” * 

Upon the topics of dream and sleep, as the official 
concordance shows, the founder of Christian Science 
wrote at great length. And almost always these topics 
come around to the allegory of Adam, while in turn this 
is interpreted in terms of the sex problem,—Adam and 
Eve and the Serpent being all tangled up in a perfect 
Freudian nightmare. Here is the account as given in 
the chapter entitled Creation: 


“Error, named Adam, is the belief, or alpha and omega 
of what is termed Life in matter. When mortal belief 
says an egg produces a man, this condition becomes as 
fixed and imperative as the original one of a rib. . . . Do 
you say man was formed before knowing his origin, then 
wherefore any belief on this subject? ... Adam being 
created before Eve, proves the maternal egg never propa- 
gated him, and Eve being formed of Adam’s rib, shows 
her origin was not that; ‘ knowledge’ defined man falsely 
then, even as at present; although physiology has since 
been grafted into the forbidden tree.” # 


From somnambulism to sex may seem a far cry, but 
the study of repressed complexes furnishes the inter- 
mediate links under the captions of double personality, 
obsessions, hallucinations, and delusions. We shall, 
therefore, take up these topics in order and find if they 





® Compare Christian Science pamphlet, Awake Thou That Sleep- 
est. Section, Sleep. Boston, 1917. 
4 Science and Health (Ast ed.), Chapter, Creation, pp. 277, 279. 


; 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 125 


do not put method into the madness of Eddyism, and 
explain, as nothing else can, the strange and apparently 
incoherent account of Mrs. Eddy’s retrospective and 
introspective life. 

In our first search for the personal sources we hinted 
that the doctrine of dissociation, or the divided self, 
would illuminate many of the dubious problems of 
Eddyism. Such we now take to be the fact, for under 
the new definition we obtain a guiding thread in the 
seeming labyrinth of disconnected events and beliefs. 
Dissociation of consciousness, says Hart, arises when 
the continuity in the scheme of consciousness is sud- 
denly broken across. The content of consciousness, 
immediately after the break, would then be absolutely 
‘independent of the content of consciousness in the mo- 
ments preceding that break. Here the dissociated 
processes correspond to the effect obtained by abruptly 
breaking off one film in a moving picture and replacing 
it by another representing an altogether different 
subject.? 3 

This splitting off of ideas was first evident in Mrs. 
Eddy’s career in her automatic “ spirit ” writing, where 
in the trance state there was a splitting off of a system 
of ideas—the spirit message. Another instance is 
where Mrs. Rice attended Mrs. Eddy in her violent 
seizures of hysteria. This student declares that during 
these attacks the poor woman would often le uncon- 
scious for hours together; at other times she would 
seem almost insane, would denounce all her friends and 
declare that they were all persecuting and annoying 
her.° This case, occurring at Lynn, in 1875, fits per- 
fectly the definition that a system of ideas is said to be 


os 


° Hart, op. cit., pp. 46, 47. 
° Milmine, p. 159. 


126 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


dissociated when it is divorced from the personality, 
and when its course and development are exempt from 
the control of the personality. Furthermore, dissoci- 
ation has other symptoms. The next in order comes 
that of obsession. Here the personality, as Hart says, 
is aware of the existence of the dissociated system, but 
is aware of it as something outside of and foreign to 
itself. In the case of Mrs. Eddy one example was 
what she called “‘ voices not our own’; another is the 
belief in malicious animal magnetism where the victim 
is convinced that the “evil one” is turning her dis- 
ciples away from her in her “ hour of crucifixion.”* A 
further example is Mrs. Eddy’s belief that her third 
husband died from “ arsenical poison mentally admin- 
istered,” despite the evidence of the autopsy—the dis- 
sected heart of the deceased. This perfectly fits Hart’s 
definition of delusion as a false belief which is imper- 
vious to the most complete logical demonstration of its 
impossibility, and unshaken by the presence of incom- 
patible or obviously contradictory facts. 

We have anticipated, but with a purpose. Inter- 
mediate between obsessions and delusions come hallu- 
cinations. But these we propose to leave till the last, 
in order to explain the most abnormal of Mrs. Eddy’s 
psychic states,—her sex hallucinations late in life. 
Continuing, then, with delusions, we find two well 
known types, the grandiose and the persecutory. The 
first finds illustration in Mrs. Eddy’s career all the way 
from the ridiculous to the blasphemous,—from claims 
of noble ancestry to claims of equality with the founder 
of Christianity. In tracing her family tree—though 
she did not theoretically believe in ‘“‘ the maternal egg ”’ 





“Compare facsimile letter to Mrs. Augusta E. Stetson, Religious 
Advertisement, The New York Times, March 26, 1922. 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 12% 


—Mrs. Eddy makes claim that even the American 
College of Heralds would find hard to validate. She 
may have been descended from Hannah Moore, but the 
English poetess must have had a Cockney strain, for 
Mrs. Eddy makes “shade” rhyme with “ pride.” ® 
But she was not descended from “ the late Sir John 
MacNeil, a Scotch knight who was prominent in British 
politics and at one time held the position of ambassador 
to Persia.” This claim was published in Retrospection 
and Introspection, and is a fine illustration of the latter 
part of that title. Unfortunately it was contradicted 
by the laird’s only married grandchild, who emphat- 
ically stated that “‘ Mrs. Eddy is certainly not my 
daughter,” and added that she was “‘ much amused to 
find that Mrs. Eddy still uses my grandfather’s coat- 
of-arms on her writing paper, including the motto of 
the Bath, which even his son, had he left one, would 
have no right to use, as the G. C. B. is for life only.” ® 
But little things like that did not matter to one who 
propounded the proposition that “ gender is embraced 
in spirit,” and that “an egg is not the origin of man.” 
This ridiculous delusion of high ancestry—unless it 
was plain imposture—was matched by other grandiose 
delusions. Here, as Hart puts it, the patient believes 
himself to be some exalted personage, or to possess 
some other attribute which raises him far above the 
level of his fellows. He may believe, for example, that 
he is the king, or a millionaire, or a great inventor. In 
some cases, no actual delusions are expressed, but the 
exaggerated sense of self-importance is betrayed by 
affectations of gait and manner, by the employment of 





8 See Mrs. Eddy’s Lines on Finding a Wild Rose. 
®Compare Milmine, Appendix A. Also the Stetson letter last 
quoted, which still uses the McNeil crest. 


128 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


a fantastical pedantic phraseology, or by other similar 
manifestations.’° 

The parts of this description fit precisely into the 
case of Mrs. Eddy. Taking them in reverse order she 
showed both the minor and major symptoms of the de- 
lusion of grandeur. Her pedantic phraseology is what 
makes Science and Health one of: America’s chief 
works of humour. She uses big words where small 
might do. Here, for example, is her description of a 
baby’s bath: 


“An infant a few hours old was said to be immersed in 
water, to test the possibility of making him amphibious; 
and this daily ablution continued until the infant could 
remain under water, and the ordinary functions of lungs 
be suspended twenty minutes at one time, playing the 
while and enjoying the bath.” 14 


For other examples we need not go far. A few pages 
before the description of the amphibious baby there 
occurs this bit of natural science: 


“Heaven and earth, together with every animal, min- 
eral, and vegetable that God hath made, are harmonious 
and eternal. The belief of Life in matter produces its 
own kind, for it is predicated on error, that brings forth 
that which is sinful, ferocious, impure, and mortal. 
Vertebrates, articulates, mollusks and radiates are simply 
what mind makes them. They are technicalised mortality, 
that will disappear when the radiates of Spirit illumine 
sense, and destroy forever the belief of Life and Intelli- 
gence in matter.” }° 





Hart, op. cit., p. 31. 
“Science and Health (1st ed.), p. 279. 
8 Tbid., p. 270. 


ae ae 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 129 


Besides ‘‘a fantastic pedantic phraseology,” there 
were “ affectations of gait and manner.” Milmine de- 
scribes how Mrs. Eddy always put on airs in her visits 
to her early friends, yet always forgot to peel the 
potatoes in return for her board. And the writer of 
this chapter has often seen the “ Pastor Emeritus ” in 
Concord bowing from her carriage like royalty at a 
review. Now, this exaggerated sense of self-importance 
merged into the major symptom of delusion of grand- 
eur. We need but change the gender of the pronouns 
in Hart’s description and it fits like a glove: ‘‘ The 
patient believes herself to be some exalted personage, 
or to possess some other attribute which raises her far 
above the level of ier followers.”” What could be more 
apt to explain the growing delusion of grandeur which 
persisted through the life of a woman who claimed to 
be the first to affix the name science to Christianity, to 
have taken nothing from other writers, to possess 
“mind reading or spiritual insight ” as a divine gift, to 
have been “ graciously prepared ” by God for her mis- 
sion, to have claimed equality with another Mary, to 
have put herself by the side of Christ in a stained glass 
window, to have referred to her “ hour of crucifixion,” 
and to have prepared for her resurrection by having a 
telephone put in the temporary vault that was to re- 
ceive her body! *° 

Of course there were other religious leaders, im- 
ported and domestic, who have shown these symptoms. 
There was Mother Ann Lee, who, ‘“‘ by special revela- 
tion,” was directed to repair to America, and received 
the Divine promise that the Millennial Church would 
be established in this country. There was also 





1° The last statement is based on information from one of the 
attendants at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. 


130 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of Mormonism, who de- 
scribed himself as Prophet, Seer and Revelator and 
Head of the Latter-Day Saints. But neither of these 
New Hampshire worthies could equal that other native 
daughter of the granite state. Mother Ann did not 
copyright her claim; while Joseph Smith gave an occa- 
sional wink of his eye as when showing off his mummy 
of ‘ Father Abraham.” No, the founder of Christian 
Science took herself much more seriously. She was 
above helping in the family wash of her poor hosts. 
She was above having poor parishioners,—because pov- 
erty was not a ‘“‘ demonstration ” of divine favour—and 
to Mrs. Stetson she bequeathed her “crown of dia- 
monds breast-pin,” a miniature in a setting of forty 
diamonds.** 

If these things seem incredible we refer the reader 
to that perfect mine of abnormal psychology, Retro- 
spection and Introspection. In the chapter entitled 
“ Foundation Work,” we read: ‘‘ Bethlehem and Beth- 
any, Gethsemane and Calvary, spoke to my chastened 
sense by the tearful lips of a babe. Frozen fountains 
were unsealed. LErudite systems of philosophy and 
religion melted, for Love unveiled the healing promise 
and potency of a present spiritual afflatus.” If “ our 
dear Mother in God ” did not suffer from delusions of 
grandeur, nobody ever did. But such delusions, as 
Hart explains, are almost invariably accompanied by 
delusions of persecution. The patient cannot conceal 
from himself that his claims to exalted rank and posi- 
tion are not recognised by his environment, but he 





*% Compare letter of October 3, 1904, quoted in The New York 
Times, March 26, 1922, For a facsimile of this highly flattering 
miniature see Augusta E. Stetson, Reminiscences, Sermons and 
Correspondence, p. 2. New York, 1913. 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 131 


rationalises this failure of recognition by persuading 
himself that it is the work of a malignant and envious 
enemy. In this way the most complicated delusional 
systems may arise, the patient being convinced that 
more and more elaborate persecutions are being em- 
ployed the more he meets with evidence contradicting 
the primary belief.” 

For illustrations of this extreme example of dissoci- 
ation we need but go back to the chapter on Demon- 
ology. This was written at a crisis in Mrs. Eddy’s 
career. Her claims were meeting with contradiction. 
Richard Kennedy had left her; Daniel Spofford had 
doubted her claims;*® Wallace W. Wright, in The Lynn 
Transcript, publicly challenged Mrs. Glover to verify 
her claims to restore the dead, to walk upon the water, 
to live twenty-four hours without air, to restore sight 
when the optic nerve has been destroyed, to set and 
heal a broken bone without the aid of artificial means.1" 
Upon these doubters and sceptics Mrs. Eddy now 
poured out the vials of her wrath and the following 
year appeared those hysterical denunciations already 
quoted under Demonology. It should here be added 
that in her chapter entitled The Precious Volume, Mrs. 
Eddy speaks of a certain reluctance to give the public, 
in the first edition of Science and Health, the chapter 
on Animal Magnetism, and the divine purpose that this 
should not be done.'® But it was done in the third edi- 
tion, and by 1881 we have all that talk about “ lurking 
demonology, dark channels, hidden agents, fatal pow- 
ers, silent mental processes to frighten the individual, 





4 Bernard Hart, of. cit., p. 87-88. 
1® Compare a letter to the writer, October 11, 1921: “ Personally, 
I never knew of her benefitting any person through treatment.” 
 Milmine, p. 151. 
' 8 Retrospection and Introspection, p. 46. 


132 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


terrible deeds of the mental outlaw, secret mental 
assassins, and Satan let loose.” ‘These phrases were 
lavished upon the first apostate from the church and 
are referred to as “‘ the crimes of that student which 
have gone forth on their errands of envy and revenge.” 

Now, these wild theories, taken in connection with 
Mrs. Eddy’s beliefs in the efficiency of M. A. M. over 
frozen water-pipes, leaking wash-boilers, missent let- 
ters and the like, illustrate to perfection what Dr. Hart 
says as to the second or persecutory type of delusion, 
with its important variety, the ‘‘ delusion of reference.” 
The patient misconstrues every event which happens in 
his environment, however trivial it may be, believes 
that it is directly bound up with his fate, and that it is 
in some way designed to injure him. If he observes 
two of his fellows talking together he immediately 
assumes that he is the subject of their conversation, 
and every accidental misfortune is regarded as a de- 
liberate attempt to annoy him. Sometimes this miscon- 
struction is carried to lengths which are fantastically 
absurd; a trifling displacement of the furniture of the 
patient’s room is thought to be a signal employed by 
his enemies, and a spot upon his dinner-plate is proof 
positive that poison is being introduced into his food.’ 

But this is not all. In many cases of delusions of 
persecution, continues Dr. Hart, the desires are pro- 
jected into an individual who has no real existence. 
The patient’s mind, in its struggle to obtain freedom 
from internal conflict, invents not only the man’s con- 
duct, but the man himself. This more complicated 
form of projection is a common occurrence, and the 
female patient who indignantly complains of the vio- 





* Hart, op. cit., p. 32. 


PSYCHO-ANALYSIS 133 


lent wooing to which she is subjected by some alto- 
gether imaginary man is to be found in every asylum. 
Into this similar infirmity of Mrs. Eddy’s mind we 
cannot enter without preliminary study, and this will 
be furnished by her views on marriage and sex. 


XIII 
MARRIAGE AND SEX 


“ The doctrine of celibacy has, of course, been prevalent 
amongst mystics of all ages. There are several celibate 
religious communities in America; one of the Shaker Set- 
tlements was situated only a few miles from Tilton, where 
much of Mrs. Eddy’s youth was passed. Mrs. Eddy 
differs from most mystics in allowing marriage as a tem- 
porary arrangement, pending the sntroduction of a purely 
spiritual generation.”—FRANK PopMmorE, The Pedigree of 
Christian Science. 


T is a truism in the psychology of religion that 
| aberrant theological doctrines are often eroto- 
genetic, that is, connected with abnormal sexual 
doctrines. It was so with Mother Ann Lee and the 
Shakers, it was so with Joseph Smith and the Mor- 
mons, it was so with Andrew Jackson Davis and the 
spiritualists, all of whom had ultimately to run the 
gauntlet of public criticism of their principles and prac- 
tices. Of these three sects the first was celibate, the 
second polygamous, while the last, in striving to “ spir- 
itualise ” marriage, ran off into “ free love.” All were 
variants of abnormal religions and Mrs. Eddy vacil- 
lated between them all. Her relations with her three 
husbands, various disciples and several “ secretaries,” 
have from the first been matters of suspicion, and some ~ 
have charged her with a kind of progressive polygamy, 
or rather androgyny. 
Into these alleged practices it is difficult to enter 


134 


MARRIAGE AND SEX 135 


because we have no such abundance of personal docu- 
ments as exist in the case of the Shakers and Mormons. 
But with the theories we can deal, and deal frankly. 


Mrs. Eddy was obsessed on the subject of sex and that '’ 


from her earliest appearance in print. Laying aside 
the testimony of various families into which she en- 
tered only to cause dissension, we note that her Port- 
land testimonial of 1862 mentioned the bi-sexual theory 
of Plato, that the chapter Recapitulation attempts to 
refute the theory and that Science and Health has an 
entire chapter devoted to the subject of marriage. 
Alongside of these statements are to be placed certain 


facts regarding the founder: that as Mrs. Glover she’ < 


was an unnatural mother, farming out her infant son 
only to have him return some thirty years later when 
he learned how much money was being made by the 
real head of the family. Some of this money was made 
in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, which 
claimed to have taught 4,000 pupils at $300 a head, 
and where, at any rate, such high fees were charged 
for the course in ‘“‘ metaphysical obstetrics ” that some 
of the students brought suit to recover what they had 
spent for these useless lessons. 

Moreover, Mrs. Eddy’s use of sexual terms in her 
writing is noticeable. For example, malicious animal 
magnetism is called “‘ mental malpractice”; the beget- 
ting of offspring in a “ spiritual” way is called agamo- 
genesis (when it should be parthenogenesis), while the 
virgin birth is confused with immaculate conception. 
But what were the secret teachings of the class of 
“metaphysical obstetricians’? We now know, through 
the confession of one of Mrs. Eddy’s students, just as a 
congressional committee learned the inner meaning of 
the Mormon “ mysteries ” through the confession of 


— 


186 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


one of Brigham Young’s apostate daughters. To put 
it in the mildest way, Mrs. Eddy was a woman un- 
fortunate in her marriages after “the fleshly mind,” 
who sought a change in the so-called “ spiritual ” union 
of soul. It was evidently her own, her personal hope 
that ‘“‘ The time cometh when marriage will be a union 
of hearts; and again, the time cometh when there will 
be no marrying or giving in marriage, but we shall be 
as the angels; the Soul rejoicing in its own mate 
‘wherein the masculine Wisdom and feminine Love are 
embraced in the understanding.” * 

We have a right to call this kind of teaching a species 
‘of speculative disease, but as in diagnosing a disease, 
symptoms are supplemented by the history of the 
patient, so here. We must have recourse to certain 
antecedent mental conditions. These conditions were 
furnished by the very purlieus of thought in which 
Mrs. Eddy early found herself. We have mentioned 
already the influence of spiritualists and theosophists, 
but it was particularly the Shakers who, under the guise 
of religion, put forward the wildest hypotheses as to the 
sex relations in the heavens above and the earth be- 
neath. For the Shakers the start is the dual nature of 
deity; the middle is the so-called spiritual union of the 
sexes; the end is that form of occultism which runs off 
into sex symbolism, like Mrs. Eddy’s interpretation of 
“devil ” as “the lust of the flesh.” We are not here 
concerned with the charge of breaking up of families, a 
charge against which Mother Eddy so strenuously 
fought. We merely infer that where there was so much 
smoke, there must have been some fire. 

As for the Shakers, Mother Ann Lee was notorious 





1 Science and Health (Ast ed.), p. 322. Marriage. 





MARRIAGE AND SEX 137 


for teaching both the dual nature of deity and the 
necessity of celibacy. The logical connection between 
the two is hard to trace, but the doctrines are in fact 
bound together. From the official accounts we learn 
that the United Society of Believers acknowledged 
Mother Ann Lee as the first visible leader of the 
Church of God upon the earth; that she represented 
the female principle of deity and that a virgin life is a 
life of purity undefiled by sinful indulgences, and un- 
mixed with corrupt practices.? As further expanded 
in the articles of faith the Shakers tell us: 


“ As Father, God is the infinite Fountain of intelligence, 
and the Source of all power—‘the Almighty, great and 
terrible in majesty’; ‘the high and lofty one, that inhabit- 
eth eternity, whose name is Holy, dwelling in the high and 
holy place’; and ‘a consuming fire.’ But, as Mother, 
“God ts love’ and tenderness. If all the maternal affec- 
tions of all the female or bearing spirits in animated nature 
were combined together, and then concentrated in one imdi- 
vidual human female, that person would be but as a type 
or image of our Eternal Heavenly Mother. 

“ The duality of God is expressed in the Book of Gene- 
sis as follows: ‘ Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness. So God created man in his own image ; male and 
female created He them; and called their name Adam.’ ” 


Such is the official platform of Shakerism, and with 
it should be compared the Eddyite chapter on Creation, 
which likewise treats of the duality of deity and the 
creation of Adam. Here, says Mrs. Eddy: “ Gender 
is embraced in Spirit, else God would never have 
shadowed forth out of Himself, the idea of male and 





2 The Life and Gospel Experience of Mother Ann Lee, p. 521. 
Published by the Shakers. Canterbury, New Hampshire. 


138 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


female; this idea comes from soul and not body, from 
Principle and not person. . . . “So God created man 
in His own image, male and female created He them.” 
Hereby we learn, man was a generic term; also that he 
reflected the Principle of male and female, was the 
likeness of “ Us,” the compound Principle that made 
man.° 

In making these comparisons we should recall the 
facts of Mrs. Eddy’s life early and late: that in her 
youth she passed some years in the vicinity of the 
Shakers, who also had their Key to the Scriptures, and 
that to the last she insisted that deity should be ad- 
dressed as “‘ Our Father-Mother God.” 

The two Shaker books from which I have quoted 
were written near Mrs. Eddy’s home and before her 
first marriage. She may also have had other than liter- 
_ ary sources to depend on. Her brother worked in the 
law office of General Franklin Pierce, who was counsel 
for the Shakers in their trial at Concord, in November, 
1848. To those who care to go further into the affini- 
ties between esoteric Christian Science and Shakerism, 
the chapter on “ Marriage,” in the first edition of 
Science and Health, should be compared with “ Holy 
Mother’s promises given by Inspiration,” as contained 
in the Report of the Examination of the Shakers of 
Canterbury and Enfield before the New Hampshire 
Legislature. 

But the Shakers did more than propound grotesque 
theological doctrines. With the dual nature of deity 
they connected another theory, that of the celibate 
spiritual union of the sexes, on other planes beside the 
procreative. To this they added—as a kind of “ ra- 





® Science and Health, (1st ed.), p. 236. 





MARRIAGE AND SEX 139 


tionalisation ””—the popular but erroneous notion of 
the virginity of the queen bee. So it was with Mrs. 
Eddy; these various points are repeated in almost the 
same phraseology. She speaks of the eternal “ Us”; 
of man or woman as “ the compound idea that includes 
all other ideas of God”; of the “ spiritual creation ” 
where the “union of the male and female is appre- 
hended in its Soul-sense,” and concludes with this 
“rationalising ” passage as to ‘‘important points in 
what is termed embryotic life; the butterfly, bee, etc., 
propagating their species without the male element.” * 

‘The duality of deity, the spiritual union of the sexes, | 
and sex symbolism—this threefold similarity between 
Shakerism and Eddyism is manifest.) We now need a 
psychological explanation of these strange doctrines. 
What has recently been given for Mother Ann Lee will 
serve for Mother Eddy. Of course the lame excuse 
may be given that the author of Science and Health 
used words without knowing their meaning, as when 
she accused a hated rival of being an “ adulteress ” 
because she ‘‘ adulterated ” the truth. 

This sorry jest opens up the sorry subject of the 
sexual aberrations connected with abnormal religious 
beliefs. The New York Medical Journal has recently 
published an interesting study entitled Shaker Celibacy 
and Shaker Salacity Psychologically Interpreted? In 
this study there is an instructive blending of the of- 
ficial accounts with psycho-analytic comment. Thus, 
by her followers, Ann Lee was considered a sort of 
female incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth and her divine 
perfection was implied in the familiar appellation of 





*Compare Platform XVI, XII and Science and Health (Ast 
ed.), pp. 262, 314. 
°* By Theodore Schroeder, June 1, 1921. 


140 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Ann the Word. She was the Word made flesh. She 
was the woman, so they asserted, referred to by the 
apostle as being ‘‘ clothed with the Sun.” ° 

Now, continues the psycho-analyst, those who are 
inhibited from a normally satisfying sexual life easily 
make a virtue of their misfortune, and achieve a com- 
pensation by means of the so-called supernormal or 
superhuman exaltation of their spirituality. . . . This 
is accomplished by the simple trick of adopting a new 
and spiritual explanation for commonplace facts of the 
neuro-sexual organism. But the subjective emotional 
conflict is not thus eliminated. Consequently, the vic- 
tims of this sort of self-deception may become very 
vehement in their denunciation of the normal relation, 
as well as very morbid in their desires for gratification.‘ 

Thus far this description runs parallel to the experi- 
ences of Mrs. Eddy. Exaltation and symbolism were 
exemplified in the picture of the upper room at Lynn 
where the star of inspiration shone in at the window 
and the serpent lurked in the corner.® So with the spir- 
itual explanation of the sexual relation, and the de- 
nunciation of the normal relation. Even the recent 
editions of Science and Health in the chapter on Mar- 
riage speak of “the vision of the Apocalypse, where 
the corporeal sense of creation was cast out, and its 
spiritual sense was revealed from Heaven.” ® 

For a further disclosure of Mrs. Eddy’s attitude 
towards the sex problem we need but turn to her Key 
to the Scriptures. Here, as the psycho-analyst would 
put it in the case of Mother Ann Lee, who also had her 





®*Compare the stained glass window of “The Woman Clothed 
with the Sun,” in the Mother Church, Boston. 

7 Schroeder, p. 10. 

® This serpent was later removed from the allegorical picture. 

° Science and Health (1914), pp. 56-63. 


MARRIAGE AND SEX 141 


Key to the Scriptures, we find side by side the corre- 
lated influence of her abnormal sex conditions with her 
religious emotions and the theology built upon them. 
In the Eddyite key to the book of Genesis we are in- 
formed that God determines the gender of His own 
ideas; that the eternal Elohim includes the forever 
universe and man the family name of all ideas,—the 
sons and daughters of God; that man and woman as 
co-existent and eternal with God forever reflect, in 
glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God; that 
in divine Science we have not as much authority for 
considering God masculine, as we have to consider 
Him feminine; that it is a “ biological invention ” 
that in the beginning man’s body originated in non- 
intelligent dust and that God at first created one man 
unaided,—that is, Adam—but afterwards required the 
union of the two sexes in order to create the rest of the 
human family; that woman was the first to abandon 
the belief in the material origin of man and to discover 
spiritual creation; that the Science of Mind shows that 
the multiplication of certain animals takes place apart 
from sexual conditions; that it is forsaking Spirit as 
the divine origin of creative Truth to come down to a 
belief in the material origin of man, the belief that the 
germ of humanity is in a circumscribed and non- 
intelligent egg; that if Life is God, as the Scriptures 
imply, then life is not embryonic, it is infinite, an egg 
being an impossible enclosure for deity; and that mor- 
tals must emerge from this notion of material life as 
all-in-all; “they must peck open their shells with 
Christian Science and look outward and upward.” 7° 
The Eddyite Key to the Scriptures is evidently a 





Key to the Scriptures, passim. 


142 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


kind of speculative incubator; by reading it and its 
rubrics about “ Scientific Offspring,” ‘‘ All nativity in 
Thought ” and the like, the believer can get rid of “‘ the 
Adam belief of which mortal and material life is the 
dream.” Of course, to the material sense, Adam was 
made from the dust and Eve from Adam’s rib, but this 
was an “‘ erroneous standpoint,” since the translators of 
this record of scientific creation entertained “a false 
sense of being ”’: to them, Genesis, like the Apocalypse, 
was “‘ obscure,” but “ to the author they are transpar- 
ent, for they contain the deep divinity of the Bible.” ™* 

Possessed with this Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. 
Eddy now proceeds to unlock further mysteries of sex. 
In her Glossary she defines Adam as “ the belief in 
original sin”; Eve, as “ the belief that the human race 
originated materially instead of spiritually”; and 
Children both as “ the spiritual thoughts and repre- 
sentatives of Life, Truth and Love,” and as ‘“ sensual 
and mortal beliefs: counterfeits of creation, . . . ma- 
terial suppositions of life, substance and intelligence 
opposed to the Science of being.” 

In the latter part of the last definition, Mrs. Eddy 
perhaps had reference to her only acknowledged child 
who returned home to bring suit against ‘“ Mother.” 
But to go back to fundamentals. The Glossary defi- 
nitely settles the question as to the nature of deity, 
defining Mother as ‘“ God; divine and eternal Princi- 
ple; Life, Truth, and Love.” This definition is con- 
firmed by the Miscellaneous Writings, where it is 
stated that “‘ We learn in the Scriptures, as in Divine 
Science, that God made all; that He is the universal 
Father and Mother of man ”’; also that “all clergymen 





4 Tbid., p. 546. 





MARRIAGE AND SEX 143 


may not understand the illustrations in ‘ Christ and 
Christmas,’ or that these refer not to personalities, but 
present the type and shadow of Truth’s appearing in 
the womanhood as well as in the manhood of God, our 
divine Father and Mother.” '” 

The illustration here referred to was finally with- 
drawn, as it seemed going too far to send broadcast a 
picture representing Mrs. Eddy with a halo around 
her head. The public had to be catered to, but what 
was going on in private was another matter. In her 
books and in her sermons, Mrs. Eddy went pretty far, 
but not so far as in her Massachusetts Metaphysical 
College. In Science and Health for 1885, she surmised 
“‘ should mortal mind adopt the appearing of a star for 
its formula of creation, the advent of mental man would 
be signified by a star.” In the same year she adver- 
tised in the Christian Science Journal: ‘“ Mary B. G. 
Eddy, Professor of Obstetrics, Metaphysics, and 
Christian Science.”” Now, we know from the court 
records that when, in 1888, Professor Eddy gave a 
course of six lectures on “ Obstetrics,” five of which 
were taken up with malicious animal magnetism, the 
students, who had paid high fees for the privilege of 
attending them, naturally rebelled.’ Weill, what were 
these lectures about? Josephine Curtis Woodbury, 
once, like Mrs. Augusta V. Stetson, C. S. D., a favour- 
ite of the founder, made this statement: 


“The substance of certain instructions given by Mrs. 
Eddy in private is as follows: If Jesus was divinely con- 
ceived by the Holy Ghost or Spirit, without a human 





® Miscellancous Writings, p. 33. 
22 Joseph Jastrow, Psychology of Conviction, p. 206, New 
York, 1918, 


144 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


father, Mary not having known her husband,—then 
women may become mothers by a supreme effort of their 
own minds, or through the influence upon them of an 
Unholy Ghost, a malign spirit. Women of unquestioned 
integrity who had been Mrs. Eddy’s students, testified 
that she had so taught, and that by this teaching families 
had been broken up; that thus maidens have been terrified 
out of their wits. . . . Whatever her denials may be, such 
were Mrs. Eddy’s teachings while in her college; to which 
she added the oracular declaration that it lay within her 
power to dissolve such motherhood by a wave of her 
celestial rod.” 4 





4 Christian Science and Its Prophetess, Arena, 21.569. 


XIV 
SUMMARY 


“What moved the female representative of the mother- 
hood of God, Mary Baker Eddy, to write ‘ Science and 
Health’ and give tt to a world which never before had 
heard such startling denunciation of the fleshly Adam?” 

—Avucusta E. Stetson, Reminiscences. 


“ Perpetual conversance with sdeas of supernaturalism; 
daily and nightly communications, whether in the form of 
conscious imposture or honest delusion, with the spiritual 
world, continued through a length of time—must be 
allowed to be unsalutary.’—Uruam, Salem Witchcraft. 


and in her Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy 

evidently offered only the modified milk of her 
gospel. The private teaching described by Mrs. 
Woodbury furnished the real stuff of which her men- 
tality was compounded and suggests most decidedly 
the need for a final psycho-analytic treatment. There 
was something haunting her, but only occasionally did 
she dare breathe what it was all about. Once, in 1906, 
in her message to the Mother Church, she blurted out 
a statement that marriage was “ legalised lust,” a state- 
ment which caused numerous defections from the 
western churches.* Of course she turned upon Mrs. 
Woodbury for the Arena article, though all Christian 


| [: her chapter on Marriage in Science and Health, 





1Compare The Interior, May 6, 1909; Where and Why Christian 
Science is Losing, by George W. Louttit, formerly First Reader of 
the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Fort Wayne, Ind. 


145 


146 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Scientists called to the witness stand in the latter’s suit 
for criminal libel, declared that they did not know who 
was referred to as “ the Babylonish Woman,” living in 
her “‘ widowhood of lust.” By the help of Scripture, 
Mrs. Eddy evidently gained a rich vocabulary, just as 
by her “spiritual” or allegorical interpretation she 
gained considerable esoteric knowledge. To these in- 
terpretations we now return. Mrs. Woodbury divides 
the teaching on ‘‘ Metaphysical Obstetrics ” into two 
subjects, the influence of the phantasmal lover and the 
influence of an “ Unholy Ghost.” With the former, 
Mrs. Woodbury was herself apparently intrigued— 
though she does not say it here. Her talk about im- 
maculate conception, her boasts about her “ spiritually 
conceived ” son, whom she called the ‘ Prince of 
Peace,” raised such a stir that Mrs. Eddy had to 
shut her up and formally cast her off. Such was the 
end of “The war in Heaven,” precipitated by Mrs. 
Woodbury’s imprudent query as to who would succeed 
Mrs. Eddy. 

There was public suppression, but the private con- 
victions still hung on. The recently published letters 
of Mrs. Eddy to Mrs. Stetson suggest this: “. . . come 
directly to me; I must tell you something about mental 
practice that cannot be written and involves ail for 
time and eternity, ...come without fail,’ *—this 
hurried scrawl betrays a state of mind that led on to 
what has been euphemistically called ‘‘ nocturnal hys- 
teria.” As Mrs. Eddy had frightened others, so she 
now frightened herself; her wonderful lamp had loosed 





_*Cf. Mrs. Stetson, The New York Times religious adver- 
tisement, March 26, 1922. For Mrs. Stetson’s views on “birth 
control ” by ‘ spiritual conception,” see The New York Times, 
January 22, 1922. 


i 


SUMMARY 147 


the genii, and what form of persecutory delusions she 
came to suffer from are to be described only by the 
psychiatrist. We therefore turn to the same authority 
who treated of Mother Ann Lee. 

First, let us remember, says the author of Christian 
Science and Sex,® that Mrs. Mary Morse Baker Glover 
Patterson Eddy had more husbands than she had chil- 
dren. This is some evidence of her having been 
afflicted with sexuo-emotional conflicts. Without the 
satisfaction of the biological impulse of progeny, she 
became afflicted with the compensatory psychological 
urge to become the ‘‘ mother ” of all who are “ born of 
truth and love.” . . . God “ is the universal Father and 
Mother of man”; perhaps because bi-sexual impulses 
in herself required the projection of these dual qualities 
into her God. She discoursed glibly about “‘ the woman- 
hood as well as the manhood of God,” probably because 
with this concept she could achieve a needed compensa- 
tion for her feelings of inferiority. . . . Those who are 
excessively burdened by the feeling of their sinful flesh 
tend to find compensation in rising above the flesh, in 
identifying themselves with the supernatural generally, 
or with God. So they argue that God, “ being the all- 
in-all,” one like Mrs. Eddy is herself a part of God, and 
how could she, a part of God, commit any sin so long as 
she rejects the “ erroneous belief ”’ that ‘‘ evil is real ’’? 

No. She is “no longer obliged to sin.” To such 
persons all is pure, even though to unspiritual vision 
it may still seem both real and evil. Having herself 
experienced that “spiritual birth’ which “ opens to 
the enraptured understanding” many things, she 





® Theodore Schroeder, New York Medical Journal, Nov. 27, 
1920. The Eddyite quotations are taken from Science and Health 
and Miscellaneous Writings. 


148 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


readily discovers (perhaps with the help of her many 
husbands) that lust is “always wrong” unless the 
physiological factors can be excluded from conscious- 
ness. Thus we can oppose to “ material sense of love ” 
a purely psychological erotism, that is a “‘ spiritual law 
of love” and “spiritual love” with “‘ spiritual one- 
ness,” with God or anyone else in the universe, either 
dead or alive. . . . Now, generation “ rests on no sex- 
ual basis.” In all climes and times, neurotics have 
found their way to celestial exaltation, through spiritual 
connubiality, heavenly bridegrooms, and offspring be- 
gotten by ghosts. Mrs. Eddy had experienced the 
pains of parturition at least once, but under the inhibit- 
ing compulsion of her neurosis she could exclude even 
that from memory and consciousness, and she may 
have believed herself to have begotten her child on no 
sexual basis. The psychiatrist can give her a sympa- 
thetic understanding, if he cannot agree with her. 
When the “spiritual creation is discerned and the 
union of male and female apprehended as in the Apoca- 
lypse,” then will marriage be abolished. . . . Here, as 
always, the development is the same, from some ab- 
normal sex tendencies through sexual allegories to a 
firm belief that all lust is evil. Hence celibacy, spirit- 
ual love, eternity of sex attraction through piety, and 
finally the overthrow of the reason upon the subject 
of the mania as shown in the illusions about the spir- 
itual generation of flesh and blood offspring which 
“rests on no sexual basis.” ‘This belief that some day 
either men or women will beget human offspring with- 
out the help of the other sex, is an oft recurring 
symptom of psychoneurosis.* 





* Schroeder, Christian Science and Sex, pp. 3, 4. 


SUMMARY 149 


This is a valuable interpretation of the three-fold 
Eddyite doctrine of the dual nature of deity, the spir- 
itual union of the sexes and sex symbolism. Besides 
the case of Mrs. Woodbury, “ virgin mother ” of “ the 
Prince of Peace,” there is corroborative evidence that 
such was the original teaching of Mother Eddy in the 
case of Augusta E. Stetson, author of My Sfiritual 
Aeroplane and Spiritual Generation. ‘The latter has 
recently published an article upon ‘“ The Scientific, 
Metaphysical, Spiritual Definition of ‘ Birth Control,’ 
Under the Law of God.” ‘This effusion states that for 
a solution of the Science of existence we should go to 
Mrs. Eddy’s teaching that spiritual generation is the 
only reality of man;—that our Father-Mother God, 
the one and only creator, controls the birth of Her 
infinite idea; that the divine “‘ Us ” is man’s source and 
supply of existence; that material birth, growth, matur- 
ity, and decay are no part of the real man and the real 
universe. ‘They are the product of the Adam-Eve 
dream of sensual, sexual conception; that our Father- 
Mother God, the divine “ Us” unfolds and develops 
His-Her progeny; . . . that the words of our Leader, 
Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy, are understood 
by all who have come up through mighty wrestling with 
the false belief of life and intelligence as existent in 
matter. ... “In their defense of their spiritual 
origin and oneness with God, they have met the cruel 
forces of the so-called carnal mind, which have been 
encountered by prophets, Christ Jesus, and His dis- 
ciples, and by Mary Baker Eddy and her students, 
who have overcome material sense sufficiently to begin 
to build ‘ on a wholly spiritual foundation,’ and who, in 
a demonstrable degree, have gained the power of the 
Christ-mind and the divine love which panoplies her 


150 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


children and protects them from the mental assassin— 
the so-called carnal mind, which has ever opposed 
Christ and them that are Christ’s.” ® 

Such is original Christian Science cropping up again 
in the person of an excommunicated leader. Now, at 
one time Mrs. Stetson was so great a favourite of the 
founder that the latter exclaimed: ‘I will tell you one 
of my pet names for you when speaking of you to my 
household, ‘ my war horse.’”® Of course these views 
of Mrs. Stetson are anathema to the present leaders of 
the church, and just as they have built a wall between | 
the Church of Christ, Scientist, and Mrs. Stetson’s 
adjoining house, so they would hide this primitive doc- 
trine from the public. But the writers of this joint 
work are in possession of many letters of former Chris- 
tian Scientists whose homes have been broken up by 
the belief of one or the other of the married pair re- 
garding “all nativity in thought.” 

Not to betray confidences, we here give a secondary 
account from one competent observer of Christian 
Science beliefs and practices: 


“To her early students she imparted a secret teaching 
regarding marriage, which teaching was doubtless gath- 
ered from the Shakers. A fragment of that idea is still 
in Science and Health. There are still a few of her old 
students still living and many of them have persevered in 
their idea of immaculate conception. I know a man, quite 
an intelligent man, too, who believes that children can be 
born without sexual intercourse. He is a very ardent 
Scientist (C. S. I mean). He was separated from his first 
wife. He married again, but his wife remained with him 





°Cf. Mrs. Stetson’s religious advertisement, The New York 
Times, Jan. 22, 1922. 
©The New York Times, March 26, ie 





SUMMARY 151 


only a few months. This idea is not as prevalent in 
Science now as it was, say, fifteen to twenty years or 
more ago. However, Mrs. Eddy cannot be understood 
unless a little light is thrown on her character from this 
source, and I believe only Psycho-analysis can do that.” 


But to proceed with our study of origins. We take 
up as the last infirmity of a disordered mind the Eddy- 
ite belief in demonology as related to sex. Here we 
would ask the reader to connect the hints regarding 
“the evil one,” and ‘‘ something about mental practice 
that cannot be written,” with what Mrs. Eddy said 
about Salem witchcraft in her suppressed chapter on 
Demonology, a chapter which was the expression of a 
complex, due to her break with Kennedy. But before 
we study that particular delusion that afflicted the 
founder of Christian Science in her last years and 
caused even the faithful Foster-Eddy, her “ spirit- 
ually ” adopted son, to leave her services, it is needful 
to examine the sources of information that lay open to 
her on the subject of Satan and His Invisible World, 
—to use the title of an old witchcraft book. In Retro- 
spection and Introspection, Mrs. Eddy speaks of read- 
ing, in her childhood, one of her grandmother Baker’s 
books “ printed in the olden type, and replete with the 
phraseology current in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries.” What this book was we are not informed, 
but we do know from certain recently recovered letters 
to her brother that, up to the age of fourteen, Mary 
Baker had enjoyed little real schooling, although she 
had read a great deal.’ This fact, together with the 





™The Girlhood of Mary Baker Eddy, as Revealed in Letters 
Written by Mrs. Eddy and now Published for the First Time, by 
Isaac F, Marcosson, Munsey’s Magazine, April, 1911. 


152 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


persistent New England tradition as to the hanging of 
the witches explain Mrs. Eddy’s references to the Salem 
witchcraft and the Salem gibbet and her use of the 
very phraseology of that dark chapter in our history. 
We have already read what she had to say about the 
“‘mental assassin’ who strives to bring about “ this 
infernal result’ to frighten the individual, since “a 
silent mental process, of impregnating into the mind, 
and thence into the body, suffering, disease, fear, 
hatred, sensuality, etc., is ‘Satan let loose.’ ” 

So, like the strange story of the “ afflicted children ” 
of Salem, we hear again the very language of that 
dreadful episode, which was still handed down by word 
of mouth. As the historian of the withcraft delusion 
States: 


“The prisons of Salem, Ipswich, Boston and Cam- 
bridge were crowded; the feeling, dismal and horrible 
indeed, became general that Satan was let loose and that 
he and his confederates had free and unrestrained power 
to go to and fro, torturing and destroying whomever he 
will. . . . Apparitions, spectral shapes and living witches, 
ghosts of their murdered victims, and demons generally 
were of daily and hourly occurrence. It was further be- 
lieved that a witch could be present, and act with de- 
moniac power upon her victims, anywhere, at all times, 
and at any distance, and that an invisible and impalpable 
fluid darted from her eye; that the convulsions and fits of 
children were under a diabolical hand; that such spectral 
evidence belonged to the supernatural world; that the 
godly were the most successful combatants against the 
Satanic powers because they would not yield to the hellish 
temptations, and finally that only those that had not the 
fear of God before their eyes, could consult with a famil- 
iar spirit and be seduced by the Devil. So having all these 
things in mind,” argues Upham, “ we are ready to enter 





SUMMARY 153 


the story of Salem witchcraft—the last great display of 
the effect of the doctrines of demonology, of the belief 
of the agency of invisible irresponsible beings, whether 
fallen angels or departed spirits, upon the actions of men 
and human affairs.’ § 


But such was not the last display of demonology. 
Within fourteen years of the above account, Mrs. 
Eddy had published her “ final revelation.” Accord- 
ingly, as Moncure Conway says in his Demonology 
and Devil Lore, a little historic perspective makes the 
situation simple.® Turn, then, from 1692 to 1881. 
Substitute for the old time witch the modern mental 
malpractitioner and we learn that a recalcitrant student 
goes forth on his “errands of envy and revenge” to 
draw others into the vortex of ruin; that he can 
‘“‘ govern the actions of his patients in any direction he 
chooses. We now understand that never another of 
our students would have gone astray from the straight 
and narrow path but for the continued mesmeric in- 
fluences of that one, employed months, and even years, 
upon certain individuals whom he wished to turn away 
from Christian Science, until at last they yielded to 
the hidden agent, and thought and did as he directed, 
and he boasted of his power over them. Future history 
will reveal him, and his inauguration of a power which, 
if it be not discovered, is fatal to. the health, life, or 
prosperity of the individual. The solution of Salem 
witchcraft has come, and its remedy is metaphysics 
instead of a gibbet.” 

All this has its historic parallels. In the Salem 
witchcraft proceedings, concludes Upham, the supersti- 





&C, W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, passim, Boston, 1867. 
® 2.402, London, 1879, 


154 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


tion of the Middle Ages is embodied in real action. All 
its extravagances, absurdities and monstrosities appear 
in their application to human experience. So, we con- 
clude that, just as the old women of 1692 declared 
themselves afflicted, tormented and assaulted by the 
evil one, so did Mrs. Eddy in her old age. Now, in 
senile dementia, as one authority explains, there is a 
recrudescence of childish memories, a reappearance of 
some apparently forgotten train of thought, which 
“rises like a ghost out of a gulf.” So with Mrs. Eddy. 
She believed not only in the mental assassin who could 
turn away the faithful, who could poison at a distance, 
who could “destroy his neighbour’s flocks and herds 
and enter his house to demoralise his household,” but 
her obsessions on this subject increased in complexity 
and intensity. Thus we approach that “ evil hour ” 
‘when it seemed as if again, to use the old phraseology, 
“the devils have with most horrid operations, broke in 
upon our neighbourhood.” 

If Mrs. Eddy wrote about demonology and the 
agency of invisible beings we are curious to know where 
she obtained her intimate knowledge of that gentry of 
the underworld. She mentions specifically one source, 
and that was the old family standby, William Smith’s 
Dictionary of the Bible. Turning, therefore, to the 
Boston edition of 1868, we are informed that ‘ the 
demons spoken of as spiritual beings, at enmity with 
God, had power to afflict man not only with disease, 
but also with spiritual pollution.” Consequently, re- 
calling what the psycho-analyst has to say as to the 
sexual conflict between the ideas of purity and the 
ideas of pollution we have a hint of Mrs. Eddy’s final 
fear of the powers of darkness and what they might 
do to her. 


SUMMARY 155 


Another authority which the author of divine science 
quotes is Cruden’s Complete Concordance of the Holy 
Scriptures. Turning to the word giant, we learn that 
this signifies a monster or a terrible man who beats and 
bears down other men; and also that the word occurs 
in Proverbs 11: 18, which is to be interpreted as fol- 
lows: ‘‘ The paths of a debauched woman lead to the 
Rephanims, that is to Hell, where the rebellious 
giants are.” 1° 

If we connect this kind of information with Mrs. 
Eddy’s teachings in her class on “ mental obstetrics ” 
we have a recrudescence of the medizval beliefs in 
incubi and congressus cum daemonis. According to 
Tyler, in his Primitive Culture, there was a certain 
belief which was a distinct product of the savage ani- 
mistic theory of dreams as real visits from personal 
spiritual beings,—a belief which lasted on without a 
shift or break into medizeval Christendom. This was 
the doctrine of the incubi and succubae, those male 
and female nocturnal demons which consort with 
men and women.* The same belief reappears in 
the Salem witchcraft where the “black man” is 
frequently referred to as tormenting and assaulting 
women. 

History repeats itself in Mrs. Woodbury’s exposure 
of the teachings of an Eddyite “P. M.,” or “ pri- 
vate meeting.” Here the “virgin” mother of the - 
“Prince of Peace,” or ‘ Little Immanuel,” boldly 
stated that girls were terrified by the doctrine that 
they might be made pregnant through the influence 
of demons.” 





” Cruden’s Concordance, New York, 1860. 
™E. B. Tyler, Primitive Culture, 2.173. London, 1871. 
2% Compare Milmine, p. 437. 


156 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


In setting forth this doctrine, Mrs. Eddy was evi- 
dently undergoing a mental struggle of the most severe 
kind. She whose motto was purity was haunted by her 
own definition of devil as “animal magnetism,” and 
“Just of the flesh.” This struggle led to a veritable 
disruption of consciousness as may be seen from re- 
calling the psycho-analyst’s definition of conflict as a 
struggle between the complex and the personality where 
the individual feels himself torn by emotional tensions. 
It is a veritable alternating personality which confronts 
us. On the one hand there is what has been described 
as “ the process of spiritual refinement promulgated by 
the pastor emeritus,”’ and on the other her belief in the 
possibility of “committing adultery in the dark re- 
cesses of thought.” The latter was a charge brought 
against the recalcitrant Kennedy. It now recoils upon 
Mrs. Eddy herself if we are to judge from two state- 
ments made by her. In her Pulpit and Press she de- 
clared: ‘‘ From first to last the Mother Church seemed 
type and shadow of the warfare between the flesh and 
spirit.” 7* In her letter to Mrs. Stetson she speaks of 
“the evil one” and of “‘ something about mental prac- 
tice that cannot be written.” Both these statements, 
the one for the public, the other for the private ear, 
emanated from the home of the pastor emeritus, in 
Concord, New Hampshire. Now, what was happening 
behind the walls at “ Pleasant View” in the way of 
mental conflict has been intimated in rather vague 
terms as “nocturnal hysteria.”” The joint authors of 
this work know the details of this monstrous delusion, 
but prefer to utilise the description of Dr. Stephen 
Paget: “No wonder her adopted son, Dr. Foster- 





** Page 28. Concord, New Hampshire, 1900, 


SUMMARY 157 


Eddy, tells of days and nights as black as those 
painted by Poe, when the unhappy woman fancied 
that evil minds were assailing her to her confusion 
and distress.” ** ' 

A brief summary and we are done. Two entirely 
different pictures of Mrs. Eddy have been drawn, and 
both should be presented, the one from the standpoint 
of pathology, the other from that of propaganda. Both 
are based on the documents furnished by Mrs. Eddy 
and her followers, and the two taken together furnish 
a picture of a female Jekyll and Hyde. The critic 
offers the picture of an abnormal child, invalid, healer, 
revelationist, and deified head of a money-making 
sect, a person whose earliest recollections began with 
voices ‘‘not our own,” and whose latest hours were 
plagued by delusions. Now, as against the present 
legend of the sweet-tempered recipient of celestial 
messages the family doctor is found to have diag- 
nosed her voices as hysteria. ‘Thus began that per- 
sistent pathological strain in the life of the founder 
of what is called ‘‘ Christian Science,” the “ divine 
name ”’ believed by its adherents to have been revealed 
and inspired. 





4 Faith and Works od Christian Science, p. 98. London, 1909, 
For an autobiographical sketch of an insane woman who believed 
that “astral giants” might propagate their kind, compare Heav- 
enly Bridegrooms, An Unintentional Contribution to the Eroto- 
genetic Interpretation of Religion by Ida C,. (edited by Theodore 
Schroeder, Alienist and Neurologist, November, 1915-August, 
1917). In this work the author cites from St. Augustine (City of 
God, 15.23) that “ Incubi have often injured women,” and also the 
tradition that “ Magdalen’s Lover was the Devil,” who appeared to 
her as a “black man.” Compare also M. A. Murray, Witch Cult 
in Western Europe. Oxford, 1921. Chapter V. The Rites, p. 183, 
“Incubus.” For a similar belief among modern negroes compare 
A. J. N. Tremearne, The Ben of the Bort; Demons and Demon 
Dancing in West and North Africa, pp. 19, 59, 66, London, 1914. 


158 THE FAITH OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


The real revelation in regard to the life of Mary 
Baker Eddy is that abnormal psychology finds valuable 
material in her early convulsive attacks, in her adoles- 
cent interest in the curative principle of mesmerism, in 
her “ spiritual ” mediumship, in her “ prophetic ”’ mes- 
sages as high priestess, and more than all in her grow- 
ing obsession on the subject of malicious animal 
magnetism, especially in its relation to sex and “ spirit- 
ual generation.” In a word, it is a true case of mental 
regression, for regression takes place when funda- 
mental trends of the organism are replaced by trends 
less fundamental; in this case, the trend of love by that 
of religion.” 

In contrast to this psychic history with all its un- 
pleasant connotations it is interesting to read the de- 
scription of ‘‘ Our dear Mother in God,” compiled, for 
a consideration, by the postmaster of Concord, New 
Hampshire. We suspect that the data in this docu- 
ment were furnished by the inmate of “ Pleasant 
View,” for it begins with all the details of her ancestry, 
continues with a technical account of her dubious coat 
of arms and ends with this peroration: ‘‘ There have 
been great women since the world began: Cleopatra, 
Paula, Heloise, St. Theresa, Queen Elizabeth, Mme. de 
Maintenon, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Mme. 
Racamier, Mme. de Stael, Hannah Moore, George 
Eliot,—each with splendid graces and superiority of 
body, mind, or soul; but as a happy combination of 
modesty, simplicity, culture, of good heartedness, of 
noble endeavour, of remarkable mental force, of intel- 
lectual depth and spiritual insight, of indomitable, mys- 
terious power and influence coupled with a gentle 





* Frederic Lyman Wells, Mental Regression; Its Conception 
and Types. Psychiatric Bulletin, October, 1916, 


SUMMARY 159 


disposition and a guileless heart, of inspiring and en- 
nobling influence, Mary Baker Eddy is believed by 
hundreds of thousands to wield the sceptre and wear 
the crown as earth’s queen.” *° 





% Hon. Henry Robinson; Biographical sketch, Rev. Mary Baker 
G. Eddy. 





PART II 
THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
BY 


FREDERICK W. PEABopy, LL.B. 


" > j 
yeh 





NOTE 


T is not intended by my contribution to this 

| volume to supersede, but to supplement, my 

“ Religio-Medical Masquerade.” Chapter VII is 

a rewriting of the chapter on the same subject in the 

earlier book. Otherwise the material here is new, 

although some of Mrs. Eddy’s utterances, formerly 

used for one purpose, are now used to illustrate 
another viewpoint. 

I should like to have it understood that, however 
severe may be deemed portions of my arraignment of 
Mrs. Eddy, they do not, to avoid repetition, go the 
length of things charged against her in my publications 
years before her death. Mrs. Eddy died in 1910. In 
1904, The New York Times said: “ There is absolutely 
no middle ground. Either Mr. Peabody is the most 
shameless of calumniators, or Mrs. Eddy is the basest 
of charlatans. And Mr. Peabody expresses an eager 
readiness to have this question submitted to any test. 
His charges run the whole gamut from attempted 
murder to accomplished theft, with endless lying scat- 
tered all along in between. The courts of Massachu- 
setts are open and, until Mr. Peabody is a convicted 
slanderer, no sane and decent person, man or woman, 
can afford to give any countenance to Christian 
Science.” 

Mrs. Eddy made no appeal to the wide-open courts; 
sought only suppression of what she well knew to be 


163 


164 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


true. She also knew that a judicial tribunal is the only 

place in which the whole truth could be properly told. 
- I make no apology for repeated attempts to dis- 
credit the woman. Thousands of children are in their 
graves because of Mary Baker Eddy’s greed. 


I 
AUTOCRACY 


“<The Church Manual of The First Church of Christ, 
Scientist, in Boston, Mass., written by Mary Baker Eddy 
and copyrighted, is adapted to the Mother Church only. 
It stands alone uniquely adapted to form the budding 
thought and hedge it about with Divine Love. This 
Manual shall not be revised without the written consent of 
sts author. No new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, 
nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled without 
the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of 
our textbook, ‘Science and Health, ” 

—Mary BAKER Eppy. 


“ Her government ts all there, in that deceptively inno- 
cent looking little book, that cunning little devilish book, 
_ that slumbering little brown volcano, with hell in its 

bowels.’—Mark TWAIN. 


was not the first woman tyrant. Isabella of 

Castile was one; Catherine of Russia was an- 
other, and Mary of England was more or less disagree- 
ably despotic. But history will be searched in vain for 
another autocrat so arbitrary, so whimsical, so fantas- 
tic, so funny as Mary Baker Eddy. She had no guide 
but her own untrained, untutored mind; considered no 
need but her flitting fancy; tolerated no’ shadow of 
rivalry, no suggestion of insubordination; demanded 
implicit, unquestioning, instant obedience. The exac- 
tion of complete submission was the first law of her 
being; and from official and unofficial followers she 


165 


} H ISTORY leaves us in no doubt that Mrs. Eddy 


166 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


achieved a submission as complete as that of slaves 
crouching under the lash of the slave-driver. Theirs 
not to reason why; theirs but to obey, and again, obey, 
and without end, obey. The Eddy tyranny was detest- 
able; but the Eddyite subjection was nauseating. Men 
and women abased themselves before this vulgar and 
ignorant woman, gave up every shred of manly and 
womanly independence, groveled at her feet. She 
used them as long as they were useful,—then she 
spurned them. 

The Church Manual of The First Church of Christ, 
Scientist, in Boston, contains the rules, or by-laws, for 
its government. As I have elsewhere shown, the con- 
stitution of Massachusetts guarantees a congregational 
form of government to all religious organisations. The 
congregation of the church we are considering has had, 
at no time, any voice whatever in its government. Its 
officials, or members, were never consulted regarding 
the by-laws, which, in some instances, extended to their 
temporal affairs, and covered the expenditure of church 
funds. They exclusively contributed the money; Mrs. 
Eddy, exclusively, through her by-laws, controlled its 
expenditure. Every rule and by-law contained in the 
Manual was conceived and dictated by Mrs. Eddy. 
She said so, and all the governed admitted it. Indeed, 
in the Boston litigation between church officials, Judge 
Dodge so decided. To be sure, she went through the 
form of asking her directors to adopt the by-laws, as 
she submitted them, one after another; but the direc- 
tors were her creatures, appointed at her request and 
removable at her pleasure. Speed in adopting a by-law 
received from “ Mother ” was a symptom of loyalty; 
and they tumbled over one another in their haste to 
incorporate the new by-law in the Manual. 


AUTOCRACY . 167 


When Mark Twain was writing his Christian 
Science, I loaned him my copy of this Manual. 
When he returned it, he told me that he had found it 
intensely interesting and had devoted forty thousand 
words of his book to it. Let us examine Mrs. Eddy’s 
by-laws with some care, to see if we can determine 
whether her notion that the Manual is “ uniquely 
adapted to form the budding thought and hedge it 
about with Divine Love,” properly characterises it, or 
Mark Twain’s somewhat different opinion that it is a 
“slumbering little brown volcano, with hell in its 
bowels.” 

In quoting from the Manual, I shall not encumber 
my pages with Article and Section for each citation. 
All may be found in the Manual published in 1918, 
which is precisely as Mrs. Eddy left it. 

One of these by-laws, so beautifully ‘‘ adapted to 
form the budding thought,” is as follows: 

“ At the written request of the Pastor-Emeritus, Mrs. 
Eddy, the Board of Directors shall notify a person who 
has been a member of the church at least three years to go, 
in ten days, to her, and it shall be the duty of the member 
thus notified to remain with Mrs. Eddy three years con- 
secutively. A member who leaves her in less time with- 
out the Directors’ consent, or who declines to obey this 
call to duty, upon Mrs. Eddy’s complaint thereof shall be 
excommunicated from the Mother Church. Members thus 
serving the Leader shall be paid semi-annually at the rate 
of one thousand dollars yearly in addition to rent and 
board.” 


We can guess the thought that would bud in the 
mind of a self-respecting person upon receipt of this 
notice. The threat of excommunication, of a denial of 


168 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


the Christian Science way of salvation, is held over the 
head of any of the many thousands of church members 
who declines in ten days to abandon home and wife 
and children for three consecutive years and serve his 
“Leader ” in any menial capacity she might assign, at 
the expense of the church. Yet men did that thing, 
when so notified. 

That the Pastor-Emeritus had a shrewd eye for 
number one appears from the following by-law: 


“ Tf a student who has been called to serve our Leader 
in accordance with Article XXII, Section 11 of the 
Church Manual leaves her before the expiration of the 
time therein mentioned, such student shall pay to Mrs. 
Eddy whatsoever she may charge for what she has taught 
him or her during the time of such service.” 


So, not only excommunication, but ruination stares 
the poor devil in the face. Little discernment indeed 
is needed to perceive how completely these two laws 
of Mrs. Eddy’s authorship hedge the budding thought 
about with “ divine Love.” But there is more to the 
same effect. Cook, chambermaid and waitress for the 
Pastor-Emeritus are provided for by the laws Mrs. 
Eddy made for her church, as follows: 


“Tf the author of the Christian Science textbook call on 
this Board for household help or a handmaid, the Board 
shall immediately appoint a proper member of this church 
therefor, and the appointee shall go immediately in obedi- 
ence to the call. ‘He that loveth father or mother more 
than me is not worthy of me.’” 


As the foregoing is one of the church’s py-laws, it 
may be presumed that the appointing power paid for 
such household help and handmaiden as, upon Mrs. 


AUTOCRACY 169 


Eddy’s call, the Christian Science Board of Directors 
of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, 
appointed. Budding thought and hedging love there, 
too, for those responding, not in ten days, ‘‘ immedi- 
ately.” But the words of Jesus in the mouth of the 
woman who empowered herself to charge the disobedi- 
ent whatever she pleased for alleged teaching, give us, 
do they not, a little suggestion of lava at the bottom of 
a crater? Ruined homes for the obedient; ruined for- 
tunes for those who disobey. 

It should be remembered that membership of this 
“‘ church ” was and is, in all cases, conditioned upon 
assent to all its laws. 

The law of copyright ‘puts me in a difficulty.” 
Mrs. Eddy’s estate owns the copyright of the Manual, 
and tne chances are that if I were to continue literal 
quotations from the “ little brown volcano,” an attempt 
would be made to suppress our book because of alleged 
infringement. I may print extracts; but how copious 
they may be without infringement, is not precisely de- 
termined. It is best to err on the safe side. We shall 
continue our exploration of the crater; but vary our 
method to avoid possible offense of the law, and at- 
tempted suppression. 

We have seen some of Mrs. Eddy’s encroachments 
upon purely temporal affairs by her church laws. 
There are others; and the violation of any law in the 
Manual entailed possible expulsion from the church, 
and, consequent, social ostracism from Christian- 
Sciencedom. 

Church members are forbidden to join any organisa- 
tion or society except those specified in the Manual, 
such as were composed only of Christian Scientists. 
When this by-law was published to the faithful, men 


170 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


and women everywhere withdrew from societies and 
clubs not of a purely Christian Science character, and 
thereafter confined themselves to those permitted by 
Mrs. Eddy. Men even withdrew from fraternal or- 
ganisations and women from whist clubs. The evident 
purpose of this by-law was to keep its author’s follow- 
ers from contact with unbelievers, given to freedom 
of speech. 

No person was allowed to become a member of 
Mrs. Eddy’s church who claimed a “ spiritually- 
adopted child or a spiritually-adopted husband or 
wife,” and legal adoption as well as legal marriage 
were required. 

Mrs. Eddy made that law and it’s possible she knew 
what she meant and the conditions in her church that 
needed it. If men and women were not cohabiting as 
husband and wife without the formality of marriage, 
why legislate against such a condition? What a 
“‘ spiritually-adopted wife’ may be, I confess my in- 
ability to conjecture. Mrs. Eddy openly taught that 
procreation does not rest on sex, and that children may 
be conceived and born in purely spiritual fashion. She 
went so far as to affirm, but not openly, that absent 
malicious mental treatment could cause, and had 
caused, pregnancy; and, in one particular case with 
which I am familiar, told a married woman that she 
was with child by reason of such treatment by a desig- 
nated individual, and advised that abortion be mentally 
effected. The abnormal attract the abnormal. A mis- 
cellaneous assortment of freaks flocked towards Mrs. 
Eddy’s freak church, and she felt it necessary to put 
up the bars against those claiming spiritually-adopted 
husband or wife. 

What Mrs. Eddy called The Golden Rule is a by-law 


AUTOCRACY 171 


prohibiting members of her church to “haunt Mrs. 
Eddy’s drive,” to “ stroll by her house,” or camp out in 
the neighbourhood for the purpose of such haunting 
and strolling. 

This Eddy golden rule is quite as characteristic of 
her as The Golden Rule is characteristic of Jesus; and 
she was precisely as like unto Him as immeasurable 
selfishness is like unto complete self-abnegation. 

I have elsewhere commented upon Mrs. Eddy’s by- 
law prohibiting the patronising of bookstores where 
books displeasing to her were sold—“ obnoxious litera- 
ture,” she called them. The pastor-emeritus of a 
church threatens with excommunication men and 
women who dare to buy a book in a store that handles, 
in the regular course of business, publications telling 
the unvarnished truth about her. Such telling, she 
called blasphemy. 

Subscription to Christian Science periodicals was 
made obligatory upon all her church members by Eddy 
law. Forty thousand members of a church, to the by- 
laws of which they assented when applying for mem- 
bership, were required by those laws to subscribe to 
The Christian Science Journal, three dollars; Christian 
Science Sentinel, three dollars; Christian Science Mon- 
itor, nine dollars; Christian Science Quarterly, one dol- 
lar; total cost of each member’s subscription, sixteen 
dollars; total income, from members of the Boston 
church alone, of Christian Science Publishing Society 
from church members for periodicals, seven hundred 
and sixty thousand dollars. If a member declined or 
neglected to comply with the requirement of this by-law 
and send in his four subscriptions, Mrs. Eddy’s laws 
provide that he be admonished; if still backward in 
forwarding his check, he is to be placed on probation, 


172 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


and if that doesn’t move him to prompt remittance, 
excommunicated he is. No wonder the Publishing 
Society is able to show a net annual profit of half a 
million dollars and more, as its manager made oath in 
the Boston litigation. ‘ Incapable of reasoning outside 
of commercial lines,’’ Mrs. Eddy was said to have been. 
Her life demonstrated that, in commercial matters, she 
was capable of reasoning from nothing to three million 
dollars. 

We cannot go into the contents of this little brown 
book in complete detail. There was no plan or system, 
no attempt at logical arrangement or coherency. An 
idea popped into her head and the directors received a 
by-law with directions to adopt it; and so the thing 
grew until it reached its final form. The last law in 
the book provides that “no new tenet or by-law shall 
be adopted, nor any tenet or by-law amended or an- 
nulled, without the written consent of Mary Baker 
Eddy, the author of our textbook, Science and Health.” 
Completely dominant in her life, in her death she is 
dominant through her unchangeable laws. In fact, not 
only were her laws unchangeable without her consent, 
they were inoperative without her consent. Official 
hand or foot the directors couldn’t stir, without her 
consent, generally in writing. Since she departed this 
life, the directors, acting without her consent, have 
become precisely as autocratic as the woman whose 
mere puppets they had been. 

Let me attempt in one sentence to outline the autoc- 
racy that grew out of Mrs. Eddy’s jealousy of power 
and determination to be absolutely the “ whole thing.” 
The five directors of the Boston church were appointed 
or approved by her and were removable at her pleasure, 
and she fixed their salaries; the editors of The Chris- 


AUTOCRACY 173 


tian Science Journal, Sentinel, Quarterly and Monitor, 
quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily publications; the 
president of the church, the treasurer, the clerk, the 
readers, the three members of the committee on busi- 
ness, the three trustees of the Publishing Society, who 
employed seven hundred and more subordinates, the 
three members of the board of education, the President 
of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, the three 
members of the committee on finance, the twenty or 
thirty lecturers, the fifty-odd committees on publica- 
tion scattered throughout the world,—comprising every 
official and representative of her church and every 
authorised spokesman of Christian Science—were se- 
lected by Mrs. Eddy, or by the directors with her 
approval, and were removable at her sweet will and 
pleasure. ‘Thus, appointing herself to the office of 
pastor-emeritus (created by her) and shielding herself 
whenever she pleased behind her directors, Mrs. Eddy 
controlled every official action and every authorised 
utterance. Church members furnished the money; her 
organisation relieved them of that and of every right 
and voice, and responsibility in church affairs. They 
had the only high privilege of paying the bills, and that 
precious privilege is still theirs. 

If there exists, or has existed since the world became 
in any measure civilised, an organisation, civil, polit- 
ical, religious, or any other, so autocratically dominated 
by a single person, and in which the governed so com- 
pletely surrendered every vestige of right and so slav- 
ishly submitted their necks to the yoke, it has escaped 
my examination of history. And this exaltation of 
herself and debasement of her worshippers, Mrs. 
Eddy called hedging the budding thought about with 
divine love. 


174 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


There have been other female impostors, but Mrs. 
Eddy stands alone. 

“We have seen,” said Macaulay, “an old woman 
with no talents but the cunning of a fortune-teller, and 
with the education of a scullion, exalted into a prophet- 
ess and surrounded by tens of thousands of devoted 
followers, many of whom were,-in station and in knowl- 
edge, immeasurably her superiors; and all this in the 
nineteenth century; and all this in London.” 

Marvelling as he did, at Joanna Southcott’s parody 
on religion in the early part of the last century, what 
would Macaulay have thought of the Eddy despotism 
as it existed in Boston in the beginning of the twentieth 
century? The Southcott and the Eddy women were as 
alike as two peas, in cunning and ignorance; and their 
devoted followers were alike in being, for the most 
part, immeasurably superior to the object of their 
adoration; but there, as I see it, the likeness ends. 
The Southcott woman seems to have been honest, to 
have believed in her mission. There is no evidence 
that she built up her “ religion ” upon a foundation of 
deliberate lies. She did not make merchandise of it 
and acquire a large fortune through its sale to her 
dupes. ‘There was no taint of commercialism about 
her frenzies. She died poor. What Joanna Southcott 
was not, Mrs. Eddy was; what the one did not do, the 
other did. Mother Joanna’s followers were devoted; 
‘“*Mother Mary’s,” worshipped. The surrender of the 
former was not complete; the submission of the latter 
was abject. And the London of 1800 differed from the 
Boston of 1900. Both instances strikingly exhibit the 
proneness of human beings to fetishism. 

We cannot leave the Manual without reference to a 
few more of Mrs, Eddy’s laws. At one time she had 


~ 


ee Se 


AUTOCRACY ‘175 


as a member of her household a Catholic woman whom 
she had converted to Christian Science. The woman 
died in Mrs. Eddy’s home, cursing Christian Science 
and calling down malediction of God upon her. Hence 
Mrs. Eddy’s strong bias against Catholics, which she 
managed, in an astonishing degree, to communicate to 
her followers. Christian Science salvation there was 
for all who would bend the knee, save only Catholics. 
The way was closed to them. Alas, poor Catholics! 
Condemned they were to continue to live in a world of 
solid realities. Not for them might sin and poverty, 
sickness and death become mere errors of mortal mind. 
_ The experience with her convert from Catholicism 
moved Mrs. Eddy to send her directors a by-law pro- 
_hibiting the teaching of Christian Science to Catholics, 
“upon penalty, if persisted in, of excommunication, and 
her directors promptly adopted it and it has its place 
today in the Manual. This is probably the Eddy idea 
of ‘ divine Love.” 

Perhaps even more than she disliked Catholicism, 
Mrs. Eddy disliked hypnotism, and she feared it as 
much as she disliked it. One of her laws provided as 
follows: “‘ Members of this Church shall not learn 
hypnotism on penalty of being excommunicated from 
this Church. No member shall enter a complaint of 
mental malpractice for a sinister purpose. If the 
author of Science and Health shall bear witness to the 
offense of mental malpractice, it shall be considered a 
sufficient evidence thereof.” 

In her estimation hypnotism was the unforgivable 
sin, and she really believed that the hypnotist, by 
absent treatment, could cause sickness, sin, poverty 
and every other evil under heaven. She feared it with 
a shuddering fear, and constantly sought to protect 


176 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


herself from it by an impenetrable mental defence. 
She also knew that hypnotism “cured ” in the same 
way and to precisely the same extent as Christian 
Science. The mental affirmation of anything believed 
' to possess curative power is just as curatively effica- 
cious as the mental affirmation of anything else. A 
Christian Science treatment consists in the inaudible 
repetition of Mrs. Eddy’s famous definition of the 
science of being, on page 464 of her immortal treatise: 
“There is no life, truth, intelligence or substance in 
matter. All is infinite mind and its infinite manifesta- 
tions, for God is all in all. Spirit is immortal Truth; 
matter is mortal error. Spirit is real and eternal; mat- 
ter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God and man 
is His image and likeness; hence man is spiritual and 
not material.” That is what a Christian Science 
“healer ” repeats over and over in the presence of 
sickness and calls a treatment. Coué teaches that 
the constant repetition of, ‘‘ Every day in every way I 
am getting better and better,” will cure sickness. Mrs. 
Eddy and Coué might swap formulas without changing 
results; just as much and Just as little would follow: 
or both Christian Scientists and Couéites might adopt 
as a curative formula, “ A big black bug bit a big black 
bear ”; and, confidently believing in its curative prop- 
erties, effect the real cure of imaginary disease or the 
imaginary cure of real disease. Neither, by either for- 
mula, ever made a real cure of real disease. In both 
cases a form of hypnotism is employed. Mrs. Eddy 
hated hypnotism and hypnotists because she feared it 
and them, and because she regarded it as rivalling 
Christian Science; and made her evidence, against one 
accused of using it, before her own tribunal conclusive. 

Mrs. Eddy had no right or authority over the so- 


AUTOCRACY 177 


called branch churches, except as she assumed it. In 
her rules for her own church she extended her authority 
over all the other churches, and no one questioned her 
assumption. She required the “ readers” of all the 
branch churches to be members of her ‘ Mother 
Church,” and required them to enforce discipline in 
their respective churches. The threat of excommunica- 
tion was held over the heads of all who dared disobey. 
No reader, of course, disobeyed, as excommunication 
meant ruin. They were prohibited from making any 
remarks from their pulpits, except such as were printed 
in Mrs. Eddy’s periodicals. One of the things they 
were directed to say, before reading alternate passages 
from the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s book, called the 
lesson-sermon, was that it was “‘ authorised by Christ.” 
I have an idea that my repeated public denunciation 
from the lecture-platform of that brazen lie, forced its 
abandonment. ‘ Divinely authorised ” was substituted 
for “ authorised by Christ.” One is only less obviously 
false than the other. 

It was not decreed that all members of branch 
churches should be members also of the Boston church 
and pay the annual tax of a dollar; but Mrs. Eddy 
made known her wish that all her followers, wherever 
resident, should belong to her very own church. Her 
known wish had all the force of a by-law and was in 
this matter represented as the will of God; and some 
forty thousand dollars a year swept into the treasury 
of the Boston church from members who seldom or 
never darkened its doors. 

There was a time when Christian Science churches 
had preachers as all other churches have; but here and 
there the preachers preached sermons that attracted 
attention, caused them to be talked about and praised, 


178 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


gave them a degree of leadership in their respective 
communities amongst Christian Scientists. No sooner 
did this alarming condition come to Mrs. Eddy’s atten- 
tion than she resolved that it should cease. No more 
sermons were permitted, no original utterance from the 
pulpit of any Christian Science church was permitted, 
and readers superseded preachers. No one was per- 
mitted to attract attention, but Mrs. Eddy; no one 
was to have any praise, any admiration, any influence 
but Mrs. Eddy; no one was permitted to make any use 
whatever of his brains. But, if the church was to have 
a pastor-emeritus, elementary logic required that it 
should have a pastor; and, equal to all emergencies, 
Mrs. Eddy furnished a pastor—a shepherd—for the 
Christian Science flock of docile sheep. She made 
another by-law, and the thing was done. By this new 
law she made, ordained and provided that the Bible 
and her treatise on mental healing should be the pastor 
of her church. This pastor and shepherd of her sheep 
would usurp none of the assumed prerogatives of the 
pastor-emeritus; once more she became the whole 
show. ‘The former preachers fell back into the ranks, 
and all praise and glory again centered upon the hon- 
orary pastor. 

But enough—more than enough—of the Manual. 
Walt Whitman said of his Leaves of Grass, ‘“‘ Who 
touches this book, touches a man.” So it may be said 
of The Manual of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, 
in Boston, ‘‘ Who touches this book touches a woman 
* named Eddy.” Two things Mrs. Eddy dearly and des- 
| perately loved—money and power. Her love of dollars 
- and cents, I have elsewhere displayed; the Manual, in 
every line, displays her insane love of power. It was a 
veritable greed, equalling her greed for money. She 


AUTOCRACY 179 


made the Manual, and the Manual made her a despot 
and her followers, slaves. 

The Manual is an innocent-enough looking little 
book with a cross and crown of gold on its brown 
cover. Words of gentleness and love there are; but, 
from cover to cover, are intolerance, arrogance, jeal- 
ousy, insolence, hypocrisy, vanity, *falsehood, self- 
glorification, a mad grasping for power, a ruthless will 
to rule autocratically, a relentless determination to 
crush all manly and womanly thought and. independ- 
ence. In the degree that it exalts and magnifies its 
author, it humiliates and debases her dupes. 

The Church Manual of The First Church of Christ, 
Scientist, in Boston, “‘ is uniquely adapted to form the 
budding thought and hedge it about with divine love.” 
With one word of its author’s encomium we can agree. 
The book is “ unique,” in being portraiture in by-laws, 
a soul document in church rules, character precisely, 
though unconsciously, delineated, writ large by the 
hand of the Pastor-Emeritus. Unique also as a “ slum- 
bering little brown volcano, with hell in its bowels.” 


pi 
AUTOCRATS 


“No other Board in the English-speaking world is 
vested with such a combination of exclusive and unrevts- 
able power over spiritual and property concerns as this 
Board seems to possess on the face of the creating docu- 
ments. ... The members of the church have the entire 
beneficial interest in the church property and the church- 
management, while, under the present organisation they 
are deprived of all actual control of etther:’—GEN. FRANK 
S. STREETER, Mrs, Eddy’s personal lawyer. 


brated case of Eustace and others, the Trustees 

of the Christian Science Publishing Society, 
against Dickey and others, the Directors of the First 
Church of Christ, Scientist, of Boston. The trustees 
held their office under a deed of trust made and exe- 
cuted by Mrs. Eddy. The directors held their office 
under a similar instrument also made and executed by 
her. And Mrs. Eddy’s trustees, Eustace and others, 
brought suit in a purely human tribunal against Mrs. 
Eddy’s directors, Dickey and others. The parties to 
the suit were, thus, all the highest officials of Mrs. 
Eddy’s religio-commercial enterprise. ‘They were at 
one another’s throats and fought with true Christian 
Science bitterness. Each side professed loyalty to the 
“‘ Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science,” and 
each side accused the other of gross disloyalty. And 
both sides were completely disloyal to her wishes, as ex- 


180 


I HAVE before me the testimony in the now cele- 


AUTOCRATS 181 


pressed in her “‘ sacred ” by-laws, when advantage was 
expected therefrom. Incidentally, the testimony of 
each side disclosed that the parties of the other had 
been making money “ hand-over-fist ” out of their pro- 
fessed religion. In many respects the testimony of 
witnesses on one side of the case contradicted the testi- 
mony of witnesses on the other. Christian Scientists 
will, therefore, find it hard to believe the testimony of 
both witnesses, when one contradicts the other: but 
uncontradicted testimony of their leaders, given under 
oath, I must assume they will believe. Personally, I 
believe them all, with reservations. When the trustees 
testified that the directors falsified, I believe the 
trustees; and when the directors testified that the 
trustees falsified, I believe the directors. 

I am not going to discuss the issues involved in this 
famous litigation, or express any opinion as to where 
the merit lay; but shall endeavour, merely to extract 
such information regarding Christian Science and the 
methods and character of its present-day leaders as 
may be found in their own testimony given under oath. 
I have waded through this immense volume of a million 
words of testimony and arrived at certain definite re- 
sults that must be accepted by all, especially by all 
Christian Scientists. 

First, as to the numerical strength of Christian 
Science, information most carefully suppressed by all 
in authority, in accordance with Mrs. Eddy’s edict 
forbidding publicity thereof. While a disclosure of 
church-memberships is refused, even to the authorities 
of the United States Government, the most preposter- 
ous claims of the number of believers constantly 
emanate from authoritative quarters. Mrs. Eddy, her- 
self, as early as 1883, claimed a million and her repre- 


182 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


sentatives have taken their cue from her. Mié£illions, 
two, three or five millions, are the confident assertions 
unofficially made. 

So level-headed a man as Mark Twain was sadly 
misled by these pronouncements, and, relying upon 
them, expressed his contempt for the grossness of the 
credulity implied, by predicting that in 1920 they 
would number thirteen million and in 1930 thirty-nine 
million. Why do men of brains permit themselves to 
prophesy? Mr. Clemen’s prediction for 1920 was 
shown to be ten thousand per cent., and more, greater 
than the fact. 

The latest official figures of the strength of Christian 
Science in the United States are those of the Census of 
1910. When these figures were gathered the rule pro- 
hibiting disclosure had not been made and the numbers 
were freely given. The total was 85,717, but, as half 
of the members of the Boston church were counted also 
as members of their local churches, the actual total was 
not far from 65,000. After forty years of intense 
activity, Mrs. Eddy’s followers in the United States 
numbered 65,000, and no more. If Mrs. Eddy was 
accurate when she said, in 1883, that there were then a 
million, what a falling off there was! 

The chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bos- 
ton church testified that he didn’t know how many 
members the church had and that he didn’t know the 
value of the church property he was handling as 
trustee, or director; but we can arrive at very accurate 
figures from other testimony. 

The rules of the Boston church require members to 
be subscribers to The Christian Science Journal, and 
an applicant for membership in any of the other 
churches is invariably asked if he is a subscriber. The 


AUTOCRATS 183 


number of subscribers to the Journal is, then, an indi- 
cation of the possible maximum of church members. 
The sale is far in excess of the membership, as many 
are sold for libraries and for free distribution. None 
are given away by the publishers. So it is clear that 
there cannot be more church-members than there are 
subscribers, and the number of subscribers includes the 
whole world. 

John R. Watts, business manager of the Christian 
Science Publishing Society, made oath that the 
actual paid circulation of the Journal was 95,000. 
So there you have it. In 1919 the circulation of the 
official organ of Christian Science totalled 95,000, 
and membership must have been under that num- 
ber. What becomes of Mark Twain’s thirteen million 
in 1920? 

The Christian Science Monitor is the daily organ of 
the cult and Mrs. Eddy definitely asked all to sub- 
scribe to it. Mr. Watts testified that a million dollars 
had been sunk to get the Monitor on its feet; and that 
the actual paid circulation of the Monitor was 108,000, 
but of these, 37,000 were for camp-welfare work. Up- 
wards of a couple of hundred thousand dollars of the 
funds subscribed for the benefit of soldiers in camp 
were turned in to the Christian Science Publishing 
Society to convert soldiers to Christian Science; to 
bring them to a realisation that evil, war, “is nothing, 
because it is the absence of something,” ‘‘ that the five 
physical senses are the avenues and instruments of 
human error,” ‘“‘ that the brain does not think nor the 
nerves feel,” “that the less mind there is manifested 
in matter the better,” that ‘‘ the body cannot die,” that 
“when the unthinking lobster loses its claw, the claw 
grows again, and if the science of life were under- 


184 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


stood, . . . then the human limb would be replaced 
as readily as the lobster’s claw.”’ Two hundred thou- 
sand dollars for that stuff,—for soldiers preparing 
for battle! 

Deducting the 37,000 used to make Christian Scien- 
tists of American soldiers and called camp-welfare 
work, there remain 71,000; but that conveys a false 
impression, as many thousands were bought of the 
Publishing Society for free distribution. I know of a 
woman who subscribed for thirty copies, at a cost of 
over two hundred dollars, for the convicts of the Cali- 
fornia State Prison,—to make Christian Scientists of 
them, to educate condemned criminals to the helpful 
Christian Science doctrine, that “ evil has no reality ” 
and ‘“‘ man is incapable of sin.” 

So it appears that church membership did not in- 
crease at all from 1910 to 1919, and 65,000 remained 
the number. Indeed there was alarm in Christian- 
Sciencedom over actual falling off. In one of his frank 
and confidential letters to his associates on the Board, 
Director Dittemore said: “The constant decrease in 
members admitted to the Mother Church since 1915, 
which has today reached a point where on April 20 
[1918] we had 541 less than last year’s spring admis- 
sions alone, must surely mean something.” Yea, 
verily! 

That it may not be overlooked, I here set down the 
fact that the testimony developed the significant cir- 
cumstance that this honest director had charged that 
The Christian Science Monitor had falsely represented 
that Christian Science funds in the amount of one mil- 
lion, three hundred thousand dollars had been sent 
over seas for the soldiers, when not more than thirty 
per cent. of that amount had been spent on overseas 


\ 


AUTOCRATS 185 


work, and demanded that a correction be published. 
The other members of the Board did not deny the 
truth of the charge, but published no correction. 

Mrs. Eddy died, or as Christian Scientists put it, 
“passed on,” December 3, 1910. As “there is no 
death,” she couldn’t, of course, die; so just “ passed 
on.” Her non-existent material body was securely de- 
posited in the centre of a huge mass of solid concrete, 
so that only the judgment-trump might summon her 
forth. It cannot be contended that Mrs. Eddy’s de- 
mise was premature, as she exceeded the allotted three 
score and ten by some nineteen years; but it does seem 
to me a reflection upon her healers and discredit to her 
system that she should have died. Amongst the many 
_ healers, who were trying to save her by denying the 
_ reality of death, there does not appear to have been one 
- of first class mental-healing powers. They had been 
taught by their aged patient that, “ If the student ad- 
heres strictly to the teachings of Christian Science, and 
ventures not to break its rules, he cannot fail of success 
in healing ”’; and the combined efforts of a multitude of 
healers failed to prolong their inspired leader’s life by 
a single breath. Not only that, the best available 
medical skill also failed; but medicine admits the inevi- 
tableness of death and professes no infallibility. Med- 
ical skill eased her last moments; but pronounced cure 
hopeless. There was complete secrecy about regular 
_ medical attendance upon Mrs. Eddy during her last 
_ illness, and the physician, himself, reluctantly assented 
to it, being moved by pity for her condition. A very 
aged woman, in extremis, was surrounded by a lot of 
ignoramuses, who denied her illness and declared she 
could not die; so Dr. put professional ethics suf- 
ficiently aside to administer a sedative or an opiate and 





186 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


tranquilise the end. He called repeatedly; was present, 
it is said, at her “ passing.” Was her teaching that 
“man is incapable of sin, sickness and death,” in Mrs. 
Eddy’s flickering consciousness when she died? 

Besides the Eustace vs. Dickey suit, to which I have 
referred, another suit against Dickey and three other 
directors was brought, and was pending at the same 
time, by Director Dittemore. The Eustace suit was 
brought by the trustees against the directors to restrain 
the directors from relieving them of their six thousand 
dollar jobs as managers of the publishing business; and 
Dittemore, a director, brought his suit against the other 
directors to prevent them from dismissing him from his 
office as director. ‘The other four directors, with 
Dickey at their head, appear to have determined to 
make their power absolutely autocratic by eliminating 
all opposition. In my use of the testimony for the 
purpose of arriving at an estimate of the type of men 
now in control of Christian Science affairs, I shall take 
the testimony, whether given in one suit or the other, 
and without constantly indicating the one in which it 
was given. It is all sworn testimony and all the testi- 
mony of Christian Scientists. 

The death of Mrs. Eddy left the Board of Directors 
of the Boston church the supreme authority, the All- 
highest in Christian-Sciencedom. ‘The Board is self- 
perpetuating. Members of the church have no form of 
control over it. As originally constituted by Mrs. 
Eddy’s deed of trust it consisted of four members; 
but, later, by a by-law of the church, she attempted to 
increase it to five. The board is the custodian of 
church funds, and the original four, or their successors, 
hold the title to all church property. It is the sole 
judge of its powers and does as it pleases. Church 


AUTOCRATS 187 


‘members have nothing to say about the use of the 
funds they contribute and no voice in the selection of 
any official. At the start, Mrs. Eddy, for the purpose 
of gratifying her closest associates, created a body 
known as the ‘“ First Members,” which, for a while, 
taking its orders from her, had some participation in 
the church government. The régime of the First 
Members was brief. Mrs. Eddy found them less man- 
ageable than the smaller Board of Directors, and arbi- 
trarily ended their official existence. By her direction 
they transferred all their powers, including the power 
to make by-laws, to the Board; and under the power 
thus cenferred upon the Board by the, “ First Mem- 
bers,” the Board abolished the First Members. There- 
after and until her death, the Board, at Mrs. Eddy’s 
dictation, made or altered the by-laws, appointed or 
removed officials and disbursed church funds. One of 
the by-laws so made required directors and all other 
church officers “‘ promptly to comply with any written 
order signed by Mary Baker Eddy, which applies to 
their official functions,” upon penalty of dismissal from 
office. And another provided that no by-law should 
ever be changed with Mrs. Eddy’s consent. There 
never was an instrument more servile than this Board 
of five men, more completely responsive to a beck or a 
nod, than it was to the beck or the nod of its creator. 
It smiled when she smiled; it frowned when she 
frowned; it obeyed when she commanded. 

And this grovelling creature of Mrs. Eddy now 
stands in her place; holds the power of life and death 
over all officials; has its exclusive grip on the purse- 
strings; commands as she commanded; dictates as she 
dictated; governs as she governed, despotically. As 
nothing could have been more abject than its submis- 


‘188 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


sion to her, so nothing could be more autocratic than its 
power and disposition since Mrs. Eddy’s death. 

As this Church is quite unique, let me present its 
character in the words of General Frank S. Streeter, for 
many years Mrs. Eddy’s personal counsel, her adviser 
in all matters relating to the establishment and control 
of the church and her relations with its officials, and 
her large personal interests. In an address to the 
Board of Directors, in September, 1915, General 
Streeter said: 


“My reflections on the present situation led me, among 
other things, to review the original foundation upon which 
this board was established, and to consider the anomalous 
form of the religious organisation by which it was at- 
tempted to concentrate in this board of five men not only 
the exclusive and final control of all the spiritual affairs 
of the members of the great Mother Church, but also, in- 
combination therewith, to vest in this board the supreme 
and final control of vast properties, including trust funds 
of some three million dollars, with the exclusive power of 
disposing of an annual income now amounting to around 
four hundred thousand dollars. 

“ By this form of organisation the five members of the 
board stand in a position practically without precedent in 
modern history. No other board in the English-speaking 
world is vested with such a combination of exclusive and 
unrevisable power over spiritual and property concerns as 
this board seems to possess on the face of the creating 
documents. I use the word seems advisedly, because I 
am convinced that these powers, although not so intended, 
are not immutable, but are probably subject to change or 
modification if occasion therefor arises. ... 

“Tn the eyes of the world you five men are Mrs. Eddy’s 
representatives, created by her to conserve after her death 
what she had built up, to promote and extend her religious 


AUTOCRATS 189 


doctrines, to manage the property interests which she left 
for their support. The form of your organisation, how- 
ever wise and necessary it may seem to you to be, is 
naturally calculated to excite human jealousy. The mem- 
bers of the Mother Church have the entire beneficial in- 
terest in the church property and church management, 
while, under the present organisation, they are deprived 
of all actual control of either.” 


Such is the organisation, created by Mrs. Eddy, and 
existing in this year of grace, 1925, in the City of 
Boston, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
U. S. A. The constitution of Massachusetts guaran- 
tees to all religious organisations a congregational form 
of government; and when any member of the Christian 
Science Church in Boston Is self-respecting and cou- 
rageous enough to take the matter into the courts of 
the Commonwealth for adjudication, the Eddy anach- 
ronism will be torn asunder and the church members 
placed in control of their funds and church government. 
Of all places in the world, America is the last where 
such an ecclesiastical despotism should be tolerated. 

I am not skilled in portraiture, but let me essay a 
pen-and-ink sketch of each of these five directors 
drawn from testimony given by themselves and their 
official subordinates, all professedly devout Christian 
Scientists; and, first, of the chairman of the board, 
Mr. Adam H. Dickey. 

The testimony discloses that Dickey obtained his 
daily bread in the clay-products business prior to his 
adoption of Christian Science as his religion and busi- 
ness. Before coming under Mrs. Eddy’s notice, he 
was, for some years, an inconspicuous “ healer.” As 
“healers ” were not permitted to engage in other busi- 


190 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


ness, Dickey presumably derived his subsistence from 
present and absent mental treatments of the sick. By 
virtue of the authority conferred upon her by the rule 
of her church, dictated by her, that any member must 
respond to her summons for personal service in her 
home, Mrs. Eddy, three years before her death, sum- 
moned Dickey for such service. He appears to have 
occupied the position of assistant to secretary-footman 
Calvin A. Frye, sometimes taking letters at Mrs. 
Eddy’s dictation and sometimes attending her, with 
Frye, on her daily drives. Frye for many years ac- 
companied Mrs. Eddy on her drives, either holding the 
reins over the horses or sitting by the coachman’s side, 
and always in a flunkey’s uniform. Upon her death, 
for reasons that can be surmised, the one-time flunkey 
was made President of the Boston church. 

I happened to be in Chestnut Hill shortly before her 
death when Mrs. Eddy was driving with Frye and 
Dickey. She was in a dying condition, but kept up the 
pretext of health by driving daily. Borne to the car- 
riage by Frye and Dickey, I saw the stately cortége 
descend the driveway of her home, and stopped on the 
walk as it passed. Frye occupied his accustomed seat 
by the coachman and Dickey sat with Mrs. Eddy, hold- 
ing her erect with both arms. Although somewhat pre- 
pared for it, I was shocked at the spectacle presented 
by Mrs. Eddy. Swaying backward and forward, she 
Jooked a hundred and fifty years old. A thick coating 
of rouge took the place of youthful bloom. Her eyes 
were closed. Death itself is not more deathly in aspect. 
Upon her head was a millinery creation, resplendent in 
colours, a girl of sixteen might have envied. I experi- 
enced a feeling of faintness when the carriage had 
passed, 


AUTOCRATS Yor 


And now, in 1925, the assistant-secretary-footman is 
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mother 
Church, ruler in chief of its destiny, custodian in chief 
of its funds. Mr. Dickey has made a “ good thing,” 
for Dickey, out of his custodianship of funds entrusted 
to him and his co-directors, for the spread of the “ re- 
ligion of Christian Science.” Something like fifteen 
thousand dollars is annually diverted for religious 
propaganda to Dickey’s pocket. This is interesting 
and rests wholly upon Dickey’s sworn testimony. 

One of the by-laws made by Mrs. Eddy for her 
church provides for a committee on finance whose 
duty it shall be, amongst other things, to see that the 
directors obey the by-laws. “In case of any possible 
deviation from duty,” says the by-law, ‘ the Com- 
mittee on Finance shall visit the Board of Directors, 
and, in a Christian spirit and manner, demand that 
each member thereof comply with the by-laws of the 
church.” The members of this committee are ap- 
pointed by the men they are to hold to obedience of 
church laws. 

Another of the by-laws, made by Mrs. Eddy for her 
church, is: ‘‘ The salary of the members of the Board 
of Directors shall be at present two thousand five hun- 
dred dollars annually.” That is obviously one of the 
by-laws the committee on finance was to see that the 
directors obeyed. 

Now, there came a time when Dickey and his co- 
directors wanted more of the trust funds in their hands 
than the church laws allowed them. They wanted to 
disregard the by-law limiting their salaries to twenty- 
five hundred dollars; so they applied for help to the 
committee whose duty it was to compel them, in a 
Christian spirit, to obey it. The committee was the 


192 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


creature of the directors, and the directors well knew 
that they could rely upon obedience from this com- 
mittee that was constituted to exact obedience from the 
directors. It worked to a charm. The directors said 
to the committee, we want ten thousand a year instead 
of the twenty-five hundred given us by Section 9 of 
Article 1 of the by-laws; and the Committee on Finance 
told them, in substance, to disregard the by-law and 
help themselves. So the directors helped themselves 
to thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars of the 
trust funds, per year more than the laws of the church 
gave them. ‘Thirty-seven thousand five hundred dol- 
lars a year were diverted from the spread of Christian 
Science gospel to the private pockets of the men into 
whose hands it had come for the spreading of that 
gospel. Dickey was foremost of those who thus lined 
their own pockets with trust funds. But the di- 
rectors were advised of the law of the land, as well 
as their church law, when they helped themselves 
to church funds. General Streeter urged them not 
to do it; advised them that it would be illegal and 
highly prejudicial to the interests in their charge. 
Speaking of the illegality of trustees appropriating 
trust funds to their own use, he said to the Board of 
Directors: 


“It is a thoroughly well settled equitable rule that any- 
one acting in a fiduciary relation shall not be permitted to 
make use of that relation to benefit his own personal in- 
terest. This rule is strict in its requirements and in its 
operation. It extends to all transactions where the indi- 
vidual’s personal interests may be brought in conflict with 
his vote in the fiduciary capacity; and it works inde- 
pendently of the question whether there was fraud or 
whether there was good intention. Where there is the 





AUTOCRATS 193 


possibility such a conflict exists, there is the danger in- 
tended to be guarded against by the absoluteness of 
the law. 

“Under the settled rule of law, of which the foregoing 
quotations are a few of many examples, it seems clear that 
a vote passed by the Christian Science Board of Directors 
increasing their own salary would have no legal validity 
and would be open to attack at the suit of any member of 
the church, for the reason that every church member is 
equitably or beneficially interested in the funds from 
which such salary increase will be taken. The equitable 
or beneficial interest of such member in the church funds 
does not seem to be affected by the fact that under the 
By-Laws the control and management of the funds are 
exclusively vested in the Board of Directors. Such a suit 
might be brought certainly in Suffolk County, and, if the 
New Hampshire law in a somewhat analogous case should 
be adopted, in any County in Massachusetts. It might 
also be brought in the Federal Court for the District of 
Massachusetts. .. . 

“Even if the technical legal right of the directors to 
increase their own salary were clear, as the foregoing con- 
siderations show that it is not, the question of the practical 
expediency of the proposed action would, in my judgment, 
be a very grave one. To a greater extent than any other 
religious movement in the western world for nineteen 
hundred years, Christan Science owes its origin and 
growth to a single personality, viz., its discoverer and 
founder, Mary Baker G. Eddy. For this reason it seems 
to me of the utmost importance that, at any rate during 
these early years following her decease, the Christian 
Science Board of Directors, which has succeeded to her 
leadership so far as anybody can succeed thereto, should 
refrain from any action tending to impair the confidence 
of Christian Scientists in their leadership or to afford the 
enemies of Christian Science ground for impugning their 
motives and good faith. And in my judgment no action 


194 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


better calculated to create suspicion and adverse criticism 
could well be taken than for the directors to lay them- 
selves open to the charge of using their official powers to 
advance their own pecuniary interest almost as soon as 
Mrs. Eddy’s guiding hand has been removed.” 


The directors heard General Streeter and, undeterred 
by his argument and his urging, voted themselves 
seventy-five hundred dollars apiece increase in salary 
to be taken from funds for the spread of their “ re- 
ligion.” They did it secretly; they mutilated their 
records by taking from them matters relating to the 
salary grab; they voted thirty-seven thousand five 
hundred dollars a year out of the church treasury into 
their own purses. 

Besides this ten thousand a year that Mr. Dickey 
makes out of his Christian Science, he takes about five 
thousand a year from the testamentary fund estab- 
lished by Mrs. Eddy’s will for the spread “ of the re- 
ligion of Christian Science”; and, to that extent, 
defeats Mrs. Eddy’s purpose. It thus appears that 
Christian Science is a decidedly “ good thing” for 
Dickey. But he gets even more out of it. He is a 
teacher and a healer. Teaching pays him something 
like three thousand per annum and healing an uncertain 
amount. To be fair to him, I should say that Dickey 
testified that some of his healing treatments were free. 
That is, he sometimes didn’t charge for giving mental 
treatment, which consisted in not merely declaring that 
there is no sickness, but in ‘‘ knowing ” that there is 
none. For such generosity Dickey should have full 
credit. As his business, Christian Science pays Dickey 
eighteen thousand dollars a year, fifteen thousand from 
funds for conversion of Christian heathen. What re- 





AUTOCRATS 195 


turn it makes to him as his “ religion,” the testimony of 
Mr. Dickey doesn’t show. 

Beside being a very grasping person, the head of 
organised Christian Science appears to be a shock- 
ingly vulgar fellow, his special vulgarity being the 
sexually obscene. For this kind of obscenity, he was 
repeatedly called to order at Board meetings. Let me 
give testimony regarding Dickey’s propensity for the 
obscene precisely as it appears in the record; and to 
be entirely fair let me take the testimony of Director 
Neal, Dickey’s close friend and co-defendant in the law 
suits. The defendant, Neal, is on the witness stand 
and the questions and answers are as follows: 


“Q. Did you ever hear Mr. Dickey apologise to Mr. 
Dittemore for improper talk to him in these board 
meetings ? 

“A, I heard him apologise to Mr. Dittemore for 

“Q. My question is, did you ever hear him apologise 
for talk? 

“A. I heard him apologise, yes. 

“©. How many times? 

“A, To Mr, Dittemore? 

i eS. 

“A. Once, that I remember. 

“Q. Did he apologise to anybody else? 

“A. Apologised to the board. 

“Q. For what? 

“A. For some remark that wasn’t very nice. 

“©. You mean some little shady jest that he made? 

“A. I think that would be all right. 

“QO. A little bit verging on the obscene, wasn’t it? 

Ten ess Sita, 





After some hesitation I incorporate here a somewhat 


196 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


lengthy extract from the official report of Judge Fred- 
eric Dodge, appointed by the court in the case of Ditte- 
more vs. Dickey and others to take the testimony of 
witnesses and report it with his findings to the court, as 
showing matters with which the Christian Science 
Board of Directors busied itself and Dickey’s fancy for 
things that gentlemen, not to speak of religious leaders, 
avoid. Judge Dodge reported that: 


“There were occasions in 1917, 1918, and 1919 upon 
which, at meetings of the Directors, the plaimtsff (Ditte- 
more) expressed disapproval of utterances by Dickey of 
a kind tolerated only when men only, and men not dis- 
posed to be scrupulous in such matters, are the hearers,— 
thereby arousing resentment on Dickey’s part, and some- 
times on the part of Merritt and Rathvon. Regarding 
one of such occurrences there was testimony from Dickey, 
Merritt and Neal at the former hearing. It occurred, as I 
understand, in the testimony then given, on August 13, 
1918. . . . Suggestions and hints had come to the Board 
tending to bring one of its employees under suspicion for 
adultery, in discussing which, upon an ambiguous allusion 
by Merritt to the accused’s name, Dickey made a joke of 
the kind indicated, which, among the others, aroused some 
merriment; but the plaintiff (Dittemore) protested, in 
substance characterising the joke as indecent. Dickey, at 
first angered by the protest, later expressed his regret and 
apologised, as he himself admitted. 

“Further testimony regarding this occurrence at the 
present hearing, by the plaintiff (Dittemore) and the three 
defendants above named, has not modified in any essential 
feature what had before appeared, as above stated. ‘The 
plaintiff (Dittemore), testifying from memoranda claimed 
to have been made at the time, gave the date on which the 
objectionable joke was made as April 28, 1918, and said 
that the apology came upon some later date which he could 





AUTOCRATS 197 


not exactly fix. The same case was considered by the 
Board upon many different dates in 1918, and the precise 
date of the apology has not been regarded as important 
under the circumstances. A statement by Merritt, first 
made on this hearing, was that, in connection with this 
occurrence, he and Neal demanded apologies from the 
plaintiff (Dittemore), which he refused to give, for ex- 
pressing surprise that ‘the members of the Board would 
have a lot of lewd talk here.’ Neal, however, while re- 
membering that something of the kind once occurred, did 
not remember it as having occurred at the same meeting. 

“The plaintiff (Dittemore) testified to other protests 
by him against utterances by Dickey at directors’ meet- 
ings founded upon like objections to the character of what 
was said. If what the plaintiff testified to was in fact 
said, it was open to such objection, The occasions testi- 
fied to were as below. 

“(1) Upon some date in 1917 before September, and 
thus before either Merritt or Rathvon were directors, 
during a report by McLellan upon charges against a New 
York church official of improper relations with a married 
woman practitioner. 

“(2) Upon January 17, 1918, before Rathvon was a 
director. But upon this occasion it does not appear that 
the plaintiff’s protest was orally made, or so as to attract 
Dickey’s attention at the time. 

“(3) On November 14, 1918, during consideration by 
the Board of the case of a man charged with adultery. 

“(4) On some date in 1918 after December 16, during 
the discussion of alleged immoralities among members of 
a church. 

“(5) On January 24, 1919, during a discussion of 
charges against a church member of adultery and the use 
of means to prevent conception or produce abortion. 

“Dickey denied having used the objectionable language 
testified to by the plaintiff on each of these occassons. 
Regarding occasion (1) above, the only other director at 


198 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


the time who testified, did not recall that Dickey said 
what the plaintiff charged, but could not positively deny 
that he did. Regarding occasion (2) Neal’s testimony 
was substantially the same; Merritt’s testimony was that 
he never heard it. Regarding occasion (3), Dickey’s de- 
nial was supported by Merritt and Rathvon, but Neal ad- 
mitted having heard Dickey use such language as the 
plaintiff charged, as he thought, on some different occa- 
sion. Regarding the occurrence (4), Merritt’s and Rath- 
von’s testimony tended to support Dickey’s denial, but 
Neal admitted having heard Dickey make a remark such 
as the plaintiff charged, though in connection with a dif- 
ferent church. Regarding the occurrence (5), the dis- 
cussion then being had involved subjects in themselves 
necessarily offensive. Merritt and Rathvon did not recall 
Dickey having talked about them to the extent and in the 
manner charged by the plaintiff, though they remembered 
the discussion. Neal, though present, disclaimed any 
recollection of the case. 

“ Notwithstanding the contradictions, as above, of the 
plaintiff's (Dittemore’s) testimony regarding these occur- 
rences, I am obliged to find that his account of them is, in 
substance, true. The only alternative is to hold him guilty 
of wilful and premeditated falsification; this I am unable 
to do. \ 

“Two occurrences, somewhat different in character, re- 
main to be mentioned. The earliest was in March or 
April, 1915, the Board having under consideration at the 
time charges necessarily involving details, most offensive 
in kind, against two women. According to the plaintiff’s 
testimony one of them was questioned by Dickey at a 
length and with a minuteness which led not only himself, 
but McLellan and Neal as well, to protest that he had gone 
far enough. Dickey testified that he ‘ made no such ques- 
tion,’ was unconscious of having gone further than rea- 
sonably necessary to get at the facts, and that no protest 
was made; but Neal, the only other defendant present on 





AUTOCRATS 199 


the occasion, admitted that he and the plaintiff did protest, 
on the ground stated by the plaintiff. I consider the sub- 
stantial truth of the plaintiff's testimony about this occur- 
rence established; but his further testimony was, that he 
recalls no distinct or lasting effect from it upon his rela- 
tions with Dickey. The occurrence has therefore been 
considered only in its bearing upon the probabilities when 
other conflicting testimony has had to be weighed. 

“On December 16, 1918, during an investigation by the 
Board of much the same nature as the foregoing, Dickey 
reported to them the results of a private interview he had 
had with one of the accused women. His report, orally 
made at considerable length, was that she had been guilty 
of the misconduct charged, and in it he dwelt upon details 
learned from her, telling the Board in substance, among 
other things, that his experience in such cases had been 
exceptional and extensive. The plaintiff objected, as he 
testified, that the report was ‘absolutely improper and 
nauseating ’"—a criticism that excited Dickey’s anger mani- 
fested by his manner and expression. 

“Dickey, not denying that his report had included de- 
tails admitted by the accused, better omitted here, and that 
she had been very frank in talking with him, denied that 
there was any protest or objection from the plaintiff. 
Merritt remembered the report and some of the features 
as admitted by Dickey; that there was a protest by the 
plaintiff, resented by Dickey, he did not deny. Rathvon 
remembered the case, but did not recall some of the state- 
ments attributed to Dickey, while denying others. Neal 
did not remember the case at all. 

“ Regarding this occurrence also, I am obliged to con- 
sider the substantial truth of the plaintiff's testimony as 
established.” 


For the benefit of those not acquainted with court 
proceedings, I repeat that the foregoing quotations are 


200 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


made from the official report of Judge Dodge to the 
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, after taking 
all the testimony in the cases. He swore all the wit- 
nesses to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing 
but the truth; he saw them upon the witness stand; he 
heard them examined by their own counsel and cross- 
examined by counsel for the opposition, and, amongst 
others, he found the facts to be as stated in the part of 
his report quoted. A careful reading of the extract 
will show that Judge Dodge decided that, on numerous 
occasions, at meetings of the Board of Directors of 
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, of Boston, the 
chairman of the Board, Adam H. Dickey, who pro- 
fessed exceptional and extensive experience in such 
cases, in discussion of adulteries of officials and church 
members and sexually degenerate practices between 
women church members, used language and made jokes 
of such a character as to call forth vigourous protests 
by other members, who declared them to be disgusting 
and obscene to the point of nausea. 

I especially call attention, also, to the statement of 
Judge Dodge that, when there was a conflict of testi- 
mony between Directors Dickey and Dittemore, he 
believed Dittemore, because otherwise he would have 
had to find Dittemore a wilful and deliberate falsifer, 
which he was unable to do. No such feeling, however, 
deterred the Judge from finding, by necessary implica- 
tion, that Dickey’s denials were wholly false. 

Let us make a prodigous supposition. Suppose that 
in a Christian religious organisation—Episcopal, Pres- 
byterian, Methodist, Baptist, or any other—the very 
highest official was known to have helped himself to 
seventy-five hundred dollars a year of trust funds of 
which he was one of the guardians, in direct defiance of 





AUTOCRATS 201 


the law of the church and in legal proceedings had been 
found to be an habitual user of foul and obscene lan- 
guage, what would happen to that official? He would 
be ousted from his position forthwith, and avoided by 
all decent men and women. 

, But there is nobody to oust Dickey. Dickey will 
- continue to rule Christian-Sciencedom. Mrs. Eddy 
knew him well; he had lived in her house and been her 
personal attendant for three years; she demanded his 
election to the Christian Science Board of Directors, 
and what Mrs. Eddy wanted was God’s will. To re- 
pudiate Dickey is to repudiate Mrs. Eddy and to 
repudiate Mrs. Eddy is to cease to be a Christian 
Scientist. 

Of Directors Neal, Merritt and Rathvon little need 
be said. They have all been “healers ”* for many 
years.—Neal for almost thirty-five, Merritt for thirty 
and Rathvon for almost as long. They are just the 
kind of men who make good “healers”; for to be a 
“healer ” requires no education and no capital. It 
needs only a disposition to find “‘ easy money.” They 
all participated with Dickey in the salary grab and, in 
the litigation, stood on all points with him. They seem 
to have enjoyed Dickey’s obscenity; but, to do Neal 
justice, he told the truth about it on the witness stand; 
and, on one occasion, when Dickey was especially out- 
rageous, Neal protested that he was going too far. 
Rathvon, like Dickey, had the high distinction of serv- 
ing Mrs. Eddy in her home in some domestic capacity, 
secretary, he said. He and Dickey served there to- 
gether and for about the same length of time. One of 
these directors passed from the clay-products business 
to the “ healing ” business; another gave up a connec- 
tion with a stone concern, and another slipped into 


202 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


“healing ” from oil. So much for the majority mem- 
bers of the Board; but there is, or was, a minority, a 
very strenuous and active and protesting and, conse- 
quently, obnoxious minority of one. 

John V. Dittemore had been a member of this 
famous Board since 1909, and during the greater part 
of his term had been distinctly critical of the action of 
the Board and the conduct of its members. He con- 
sistently stood for honesty and decency in all its acts 
and utterances. Accusing it of “ arrogance, autocracy, 
pharisaism, unmercifulness and incompetence which 
cannot be healed,” he declared that it ‘“‘ must be ruled 
out or those expressing those qualities must go.” He 
accused them of dishonesty in their publications and 
when the Board, notwithstanding his protest, appropri- 
ated twenty-seven thousand dollars of the money 
contributed for camp-welfare work to buy, of the pub- 
lishing end of their business, ten thousand Bibles for 
the soldiers, Dittemore denounced the charge as exces- 
sive. Bibles, good Bibles, extremely good Bibles can 
be bought, and could then be bought, for fifty cents 
each; and this Board decided to pay itself two dollars 
and seventy cents apiece for Bibles for soldiers! 

Dickey and the other majority members of the 
Board didn’t like the minority member, Dittemore. 
No wonder! He wanted them to be decent and honest, 
and persistently sought to make them so. ‘“ Why,” he 
asked them, “‘ should we expect the real estate fund of 
the ‘ Mother Church’ to grow and meet our needs, 
when there is the opposite of love, compassion and 
unity expressed on this Board?” ‘‘ Why should we 
expect the Mother Church attendance should come out 
of its years of stagnation, and increase, unless we pro- 
duce the occasion for it?” “The exchanges in the 


AUTOCRATS 203 


Sentinel are not always honest,” he contended, “ inas- 
much as the article as a whole, if published, would 
usually contradict the sentiment of the detached sen- 
tence or paragraph quoted.” He made a motion that 
no “form of discipline shall be taken without giving 
the accused an adequate opportunity to be heard,” and 
his motion was not even seconded. He objected to the 
mutilation of the official record of the Board, and con- 
sistently stood for sincerity and disinterestedness and 
cleanness. To eliminate this troublesome obstacle, the 
majority members passed a resolution by which they 
attempted to remove him from office. Dittemore ap- 
pealed to the courts, but the court decided that the 
majority had power to separate him from his directorial 
office, and the objectionable minority member ceased 
from troubling Dickey. 

It is true that Dittemore, for a time, took his in- 
crease of salary with the others; but, when convinced 
of his at least questionable right to it, he returned the 
increase by a check for upwards of ten thousand 
dollars. 

One cannot read the testimony in this litigation 
without a conviction that it would be well for Christian 
Science if all its high officials were of the Dittemore 
type. But Dickey and his associates are much more 
truly representative of its “ founder and discoverer,” 
Mary Baker G. Eddy. ‘I think she has never allowed 
a dollar, that had no friends, to get’ by alive,” said 
Mark Twain; and her successors in authority pay her 
the compliment of emulating her high example. The 
powers that be are no less greedy, no less sordid, no less 
despotic than their revered “leader.” No one else 
could be so boldly and fantastically untruthful as she. 
Such are the men now in control of organised Chris- 


— 


204 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


tian Science. While Mrs. Eddy lived they were her 
tools. Since her death, they have become autocrats. 
Church members cannot make or break them. Be they 
Dickeys or Dittemores, the membership must accept 
them as the supreme authority. However vulgar, 
obscene, dishonest, the members are powerless, except 
by appeal to the courts, to escape from their govern- 
, ment. Except by resignation, a vacancy on the Board 
' can only be caused by death; and a vacancy can be 
filled only by action of the remaining directors.+ The 
powers Mrs. Eddy took upon herself, are now the 
directors’. They admit and excommunicate church 
members and do as they please with church funds. 
They appoint and, at pleasure, remove all officials of 
the Boston church. They control the officials of all 
branch churches and, through the officials, the mem- 
bers thereof. Christian Scientists have not the same 
reverence for their present governors that they had for 
Mrs. Eddy, but the by-laws are their authority and 
Mrs. Eddy framed every by-law. Besides, how can 
objection be made by a church member to by-laws he 
assented to when making application for membership? 
It is a strange, a passing strange situation. There isa 
much honoured equitable maxim, “ Equity will not 
suffer a wrong to be without a remedy.” If the organ- 
isation doesn’t go utterly to smash through internal 
dissension, some day in some way, through the action 
of some Dittemore, the courts will find a remedy for 
this monstrous wrong of Mrs. Eddy’s creation. 





*On February 5, 1925, and after this chapter had been. written, 
death created a vacancy, and a few days later the surviving di- 
rectors elected George Wendall Adams in the place of Adam H, 
Dickey, deceased. 


III 


SUPPRESSION 


tation known to the law, suggestio falsi and 

suppressio veri, suggestion or affirmation of 
falsehood and suppression of the truth. Of both 
varieties Mrs. Eddy and her official successors. were 
and the latter continue to be past masters. Mrs. Eddy 
never hesitated at a lie that would serve her purpose, 
and the so-called Christian Science Committee on Pub- 
lication zealously emulates her example. It will deny 
the best established truth, if it is harmful to Mrs. 
Eddy’s fame, and affirm the boldest of lies that will 
add to her glory, in the belief of the faithful. As the 
Christian Science Committee on Publication is omni- 
present and exceedingly verbose, something should be 
said of its constitution and methods. 

The Board of Directors of the Christian Science 
Church of Boston controls absolutely every avenue of 
publicity. Through the Committee on Publication it 
monopolises newspaper publicity and through the 
Board of Lectureships it monopolises the platform. 
No Christian Scientist, not a member of this Com- 
mittee or Board, is permitted to write a letter to a 
newspaper in defence of his faith or speak in public in 
its favour. As no original utterance is allowed in any 
Christian Science church, it will be understood how 
completely the directors of the First Church of Christ, 
Scientist, in Boston, control the channels through 


205 


4 erm are two kinds of fraudulent represen- 


206 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


which the public gets information regarding Mrs. Eddy 
and her “ religion.” 

The Committee on Publication of the Boston Church 
was established by Mrs. Eddy by an article she caused 
to be incorporated in the church by-laws and published 
in the Church Manual. ‘The article provides that the 
directors of the church shall appoint a committee on 
publication of ‘ one loyal Christian Scientist, who lives 
in Boston, and he shall be manager of the Christian 
Science Committee on Publication throughout the 
United States, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland.” 
The appointment was subject to the approval of Mrs. 
Eddy “ given in her own handwriting,” and the salary 
was to be “ not less than four thousand dollars a year.” 
Provision is made for a committee of one in each State 
and Canada, selected by the three largest churches 
therein, and these state committees appoint assistant 
committees in every community within their respective 
territory. In this manner the whole English-speaking 
world, practically, is covered by agents of the Boston 
church; for all of the committees are selected subject, 
since the death of Mrs. Eddy, to the approval of the 
directors thereof, and may be appointed by them. 

All of these committees are required to correct “ im- 
positions on the public in regard to Christian Science 
and injustices done to Mrs. Eddy or members of this 
church ” by the ” daily press, periodicals or circulated 
literature of any sort,” and are responsible for the pub- 
lication and circulation of such “ corrections in large 
quantities.” If publication is not promptly made, the 
Committee on Publication is required to ‘apply for 
aid to the Committee on Business,” and the very 
business-like Committee on Business promptly fur- 
nishes advertising charges to insure publication. I 


SUPPRESSION 207 


should have said that all committees are liberally paid. 

In the exercise of the duties thus imposed upon them 
to “correct imposition on the public ” and “ injustice 
to Mrs. Eddy and other Christian Scientists,’ the pub- 
lication committees invariably construe “ imposition ” 
to be synonymous with harmful, and “injustice ” with 
discrediting, and act accordingly. Harmful and dis- 
crediting publications are unhesitatingly denied and 
helpful publications are made without the slightest 
regard for the truth. The individual acting as com- 
mittee knows little or nothing about the fact; but will 
deny or affirm, as interest dictates. The utter futility 
of controversy with these agents of the directors of the 
Boston church is now clearly seen. 

But other and more sinister duties than those enum- 
erated in the Manual are required of and performed by 
this organisation. Suppression is one of them. They 
must, if possible, suppress publication of harmful facts. 
For instance: A woman of thirty-five years’ suffering 
from Bright’s disease died in Cleveland, under Chris- 
tian Science treatment, and the “healer” was prose- 
cuted for practising medicine without a license. He 
was convicted and fined one hundred dollars. The 
testimony at the trial showed that, until five weeks 
before her death, the woman had been under medical 
treatment consisting mainly of diet and regulation of 
bodily functions with a view to comfort and the pro- 
longation of life. With the beginning of Christian 
Science treatment, she was advised by her “‘ healer ” to 
eat, and did eat, anything she liked, amongst them 
things deadly to a person afflicted as she was; and the 
regular functioning of the body was completely ig- 
nored. The consequence was that, during the five 
weeks of the “ healer’s ” treatment, which terminated 


208 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


in her death, her bowels were relieved but once, and 
her condition, as a witness testified, was “‘ too horrible 
to describe.” 

As a result of the activities of the local Christian 
Science Committee on Publication, no newspaper in 
Cleveland published any report of the trial, the testi- 
mony or the conviction. Precisely the same thing is. 
done, or attempted, wherever and whenever possible. _ 

Another undeclared duty of this committee is the 
organisation of opposition to every effort made for the 
enactment of laws for the prevention and spread of 
contagious disease and the protection of the public 
health. In this connection, card indexes are main- 
tained of members of legislative bodies and editors of 
newspapers. Printed cards are distributed to assist- 
ants in every locality with blanks to be filled in showing 
the name of the legislator or editor, “ his religion, his 
attitude towards Christian Science and protective med- 
ical legislation, his politics and the names of his in- 
fluential friends.” All this is a close secret. 

I can furnish much testimony to the effect that it is 
the further duty of these salaried agents of the Boston 
church to roundly slander, always anonymously, any- 
one who dares stand up in public and tell the unvar- 
nished truth about The Church of St. Bunco and its 
founder. 

Inasmuch as these advertising agents are wholly un- 
influenced by considerations of truth or falsity and are 
furnished ample funds to procure publication of their 
material, their advantage over an honest critic is evi- 
dent. They say anything they think will be helpful 
and are insured the last word. 

The Board of Lectureships is composed of men who 
tour the country to glorify Mrs. Eddy and expound 


SUPPRESSION 209 


her religio-medical ‘‘ discoveries.” None of them is 
free to speak his mind. All their lectures are subjected 
to censorship by the Boston oligarchy and not a word 
may be changed after the lecture has been duly O. K.’d. 
No questions may be asked the lecturer. Every Chris- 
tian Science church must have a lecture at least once a 
year and is required to pay the fee, which is left to the 
discretion of the lecturer, and is at least a hundred 
dollars. As there is no exposition whatever of Chris- 
tian Science in the churches of the cult, these lectures 
are the only instrumentality, outside of Mrs. Eddy’s 
books, through which the public may receive authori- 
tative information. 

A word about the churches. They have no preach- 
ers, no pastors. They have merely readers, First and 
Second, male and female; and the lesson-sermon con- 
sists of the reading, alternately, of ‘“ correlative ” pas- 
sages from the two inspired volumes, Science and 
Health and the Bible; but the correlation is wholly 
imperceptible, that is to say, non-existent. The First 
Reader (male) reads from the book of first importance, 
Science and Health; the Second Reader (female) from 
the book of secondary importance and authority. No 


_ education is necessary for readers. Anyone who, by 
' practice, can master the English of Mrs. Eddy’s book, 
is qualified to preside over the services of the most 


rate 


pretentious Christian Science church. Clothes of the 


latest mode, a fair presence and a vacant mind alone 
are requisite. Original discourses are prohibited. And 
Christian Scientists do not pray. 

“The divine ear is not an auditory nerve,” said Mrs. 
Eddy, and ‘“‘ God is not influenced by man.” In fact 
her idea was, as she said, that “ prayer to a personal 
God is a hindrance.” So her followers do not pray. 


210 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Rather a queer religion—without prayer? It is true 
that in Christian Science churches the Lord’s Prayer 
is repeated; but Mrs. Eddy’s “ spiritual interpreta- 
tion,” read with it, line by line, effectually eliminates 
every quality of prayer; and Christian Scientists pro- 
fess to pray only when they invoke the constitutional 
guarantee of religious freedom as a defence in a prose- 
cution for killing a child through neglect to furnish 
medical attendance. 

Here let me confine myself to that variety of Chris- 
tian Science fraud known to the law as suppression of 
the truth. The truth would kill Christian Science. As 
the truth cannot be controverted, it must be suppressed. 

An experience of upwards of twenty years’ investi- 
gating and combating Christian Science makes it ne- 
cessary that I should be a little personal. I think I 
was the first publicly to present the facts of Mrs. 
Eddy’s life quite plainly and to call a spade a spade. 
The discovery, in the regular performance of profes- 
sional duty, of her reckless mendacity, her heartless 
cruelty, her utter selfishness, her colossal greed, was 
astounding, and I deemed it my bounden duty to make 
it public. In consequence, I became acquainted with 
Christian Science methods of suppressing what they 
_ cannot refute. 

In 1901 I published what I called a Complete Expos- 
- ure of Eddyism or Christian Science, in which I set 
forth the plain truth regarding Mrs. Eddy in the plain- 
est of terms, specifically accusing her, amongst frauds 
of many kinds, of repeatedly attempting to cause dis- 
ease and even death by professed mental powers. Inci- 
dentally I called attention to the indictment of her 
third husband for a conspiracy to commit murder 
against a person, who had not yielded to mental meth- 


SUPPRESSION 211 


ods, by means purely physical. I was animated by no 
other purpose than the determination that the world 
should know the truth and the whole truth about a 
shallow and sordid charlatan; who owned a “ religion ” 
that she gave freely to no one and sold as a coal-dealer 
sells coal; who professed the discovery of a cure-all 
healing system, that never healed anyone of any real 
disease or relieved anyone of any real evil—but his 
money. ‘Ten thousand of the pamphlet were sold. I, 
personally, sent copies to Mrs. Eddy’s leading church 
officials and her leading lawyers. It was also put into 
Mrs. Eddy’s own hands. 

If my charges thus publicly made and called to Mrs. 
Eddy’s attention had not been true, if her life and repu- 
tation had been such that she had dared submit them 
to the searching scrutiny of a court of law, she most 
surely would, and should, have called me to account; 
but she knew the facts to be far worse than I had stated 
them and sought only my suppression. 

Mrs. Eddy, at the time, lived at Concord, New 
Hampshire, and Hon. Henry Robinson, formerly 
mayor, was postmaster of the city. Robinson was a 
good lawyer and a good fellow, but an unfortunate 
habit kept him poor. He maintained pleasant, even 
friendly, relations with the famous woman at “‘ Pleas- 
ant View,” and turned a penny now and then by some 
small service or some extravagant public praise. It 
afforded Mrs. Eddy not a little satisfaction to be able 
to quote Hon. Henry Robinson, postmaster and former 
mayor of her home city, in glorification of Concord’s 
most celebrated personality, and Robinson’s pzans 
were certainly worth his price. 

When she reached the conclusion that the only way 
to meet my accusations was, if possible, to suppress 


212 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


them, Mrs. Eddy summoned the postmaster to her 
home and commissioned him to go to Washington and 
endeavour to procure a ruling of the Post Office De- 
partment excluding my pamphlet from the mails. It 
happened that the then Postmaster-General was his 
personal friend and Mr. Robinson painted the chances 
of success in such glowing colours that expense money 
and a substantial fee were promptly forthcoming; but 
Mrs. Eddy assured him it would be necessary to pro- 
vide him with a defence against the malicious animal. 
magnetism of her enemies, which otherwise would 
nullify his efforts; so a Christian Scientist was desig- 
nated to accompany him to Washington and envelop 
him the while in impenetrable mental armour. The 
twain set out, but got only as far as Boston, when, on 
the advice of Samuel J. Elder, then Mrs. Eddy’s most 
trusted legal adviser, the plan was abandoned. Pea- 
body, Mr. Elder urged, would get a lot of free advertis- 
ing and the Postmaster-General would refuse to rule 
against his pamphlet. Something better must be 
thought of, and Mrs. Eddy’s fertile brain thought of it. 

If the mails could not be closed to me, perhaps the 
bookstores might; so Mrs. Eddy sat her down and 
seized a pen and traced these pregnant words: “A 
member of this church shall not patronise a publishing 
house or bookstore that has for sale obnoxious litera- 
ture.” Dispatched to her Boston agents, the Directors 
of the “ Mother Church,” with instructions to adopt it 
as a by-law and incorporate it in the Church Manual 
for the guidance of the faithful, it was immediately 
adopted and as Sec. 12, Article VIII of the Manual it 
stands today. 

When it is known that all persons recognised as 
Christian Scientists must belong to the Boston church 


SUPPRESSION 213 


and that Mrs. Eddy’s laws were made to be obeyed 
upon penalty of expulsion and outer darkness, and 
that they are obeyed, it will be seen what a powerful 
instrument of suppression Sec. 12, Article VIII is. It 
didn’t quite put me out of the bookstores; it took me 
from the company of the innocuous on the counter and 
numbered me with the “ obnoxious” in the drawer. 
In any bookstore, in any part of the land, the display 
of my pamphlet and, later, of my book has invariably 
resulted in the exhibition to the astonished proprietor 
of Mrs. Eddy’s command, accompanied by the threat 
of a boycott by every one of the ‘“‘ two million ” Chris- 
tian Scientists so long as the “ obnoxious literature ” 
remains on sale. Thereupon, out of sight it goes. 

Not only is this true of my anti-Christian Science 
work, it is true of all writings critical of Christian 
Science or its founder. The church authorities have 
thus suppressed some of the most valuable sources of 
reliable information regarding the Christian Science 
attack upon the Christian religion and upon sane med- 
ical practices. Called Christian and called science, it 
is the negation of both. Professing absolute knowl- 
edge, it denounces education and denies the evidence 
of the senses. A creation of shreds and patches, it 
could not live a single day in the light; but, through 
suppression of the results of honest research, is made 
to appear religion pure and undefiled. Some such sup- 
pressions should be cited. 

Before taking up the suppression of books published 
through the ordinary channels let me first give pub- 
licity to a wholesale suppression of unpublished ma- 
terial in the highest degree discrediting to the so-called 
Founder of Christian Science and her “ religion.” 
Otherwise it will never be known. 


214 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


I was one of the lawyers for Mrs, Eddy’s sons in 
their suit to have her adjudged incompetent to manage 
her business affairs and protect her property interests. 
The suit was never closed by judgment of the court for 
either side; but the whole controversy was ultimately 
settled by payment to the sons of about $300,000. A 
condition of the settlement, imposed by lawyers for 
Mrs. Eddy, was that all of the testimony taken in the 
form of depositions and filed in court, be sealed against 
public inspection, and all of Mrs. Eddy’s letters upon 
which the sons relied as evidence of their contention, 
should be turned over to them, and that Mrs. Eddy 
herself should not be subjected to examination. 

In contemplation of the examination of Mrs. Eddy, 
I was asked by my senior associate, Hon. William E. 
Chandler, to prepare material for his use; and I fur- 
nished him data that would have taken a week or more 
to cover and would have shown conclusively one of two 
things—insanity or fraud. If Mrs. Eddy had stood by 
the declarations of thirty years of her life, her insanity 
would have been easily shown; and that could bé es- 
caped only by an admission of lies and fraud. But the 
sons were not seeking to discredit their mother. They 
wanted only protection of personal interests and rights. 
Mrs. Eddy was not examined, all the letters in the con- 
trol of counsel for the sons were surrendered and all 
the depositions were, on consent, taken from the court 
files and turned over to Mrs. Eddy’s lawyers. So far 
as originals were concerned, the suppression was com- 
plete. A marvellous opportunity for a great service 
passed and the “religion” and its Founder escaped 
judicial exposure at a cost of $300,000. 

Second: It was in 1905 that Miss Georgine Milmine 
called at my office, in Boston, and said she was writing 


SUPPRESSION 215 


a series of papers on famous American women and 
wanted data regarding Mrs. Eddy, as she then deemed 
her worthy of a place in such company. I furnished 
Miss Milmine with information that put her in the way 
of getting the desired material at first-hand, and, some 
months later, she returned to the office a very much 
astonished young woman. A mass of material had 
been accumulated, but vastly different from what she 
had expected to find, and the idea of honouring Mrs. 
Eddy with a place amongst reputable and distinguished 
women had been abandoned. 

Miss Milmine arranged her material as a history of 
Mrs. Eddy and submitted it to McClure’s Magazine. 
Shortly thereafter, Mr. S. S$. McClure came to see me 
with a view to confirming Miss Milmine’s findings and 
extending the investigation until it should be exhaust- 
ive. The job was too big for one person, he thought, 
and, giving Miss Milmine full credit, he had put it into 
the hands of his staff of experts, under the leadership 
of Miss Cather. They were instructed to spare neither 
time nor money, to cover the entire life of Mrs. Eddy, 
to accept nothing on hearsay, and rely only upon first- 
hand sources, and verify until there could be no pos- 
sible doubt of absolute accuracy. In case of material 
that was calculated to provoke a law-suit by Mrs. Eddy 
for vindication, an abundance of supporting testimony 
in writing under oath was to be taken and carefully 
preserved. 

For upwards of a year Miss Cather and her associ- 
ates, George Kibby Turner, Burton Hendricks, Will 
Irwin and others went over the whole period of Mrs. 
Eddy’s life, visiting every place in which she had so- 
journed even for a night and interviewing every person 
known to have had the slightest contact with her. 


216 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


They procured innumerable photographs of persons 
and places and fortified every discrediting incident by 
the sworn statements of witnesses competent to testify 
of their own knowledge in a court of law. They 
studied Mrs. Eddy’s published writings, read many 
hundreds of her unpublished letters and other writings 
and the published and unpublished writings of those 
from whom she had stolen her ideas. I say stolen, 
instead of borrowed, advisedly. They left no period 
of her life, no incident of her career, no phase of her 
thought unexplored, and produced a work, wholly 
without bias, that was exhaustive and, with one excep- 
tion, accurate. That one mistake was due to reliance 
upon Mrs. Eddy’s own written guarantee of the genu- 
ineness of a photograph. 

Wishing to have for the announcement, in the De- 
cember, 1906, issue of the Magazine, of the forthcom- 
ing series of articles, a photograph of Mrs. Eddy 
authenticated by herself, they secured a picture sent 
by Mrs. Eddy to a young lady, in response to a request 
for her photograph, that had on its face Mrs. Eddy’s 
autograph endorsement. It was not a picture of Mrs. 
Eddy, but Mrs. Eddy had sent it as such to her cor- 
respondent and had written her name beneath the 
picture as a guarantee of its genuineness. McClure’s 
mistake was in placing confidence in Mrs. Eddy’s as- 
surance that the picture was of her. 

With that exception, there was not an error in the 
work; and it left the famed “ Founder and Discoverer 
of Christian Science’ without a shred of character. 
Having herself depicted herself as being hand-in-hand 
with the Saviour, like Him, a haloed divinity; the Mil- 
mine life exhibited her as an ignorant, vulgar, men- 
dacious, incredibly avaricious impostor. 


SUPPRESSION 217 


After the publication of this material in serial form 
in McClure’s Magazine, in 1907-1908, it was revised, 
new material was added and a book publishing house 


brought it out as a book entitled The Life of Mary 


Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science. 
The book had a large sale, got into the public libraries, 
was widely quoted and relied upon as authoritative. 
Then something happened. The History disappeared 
from the bookstores; the publishers refused to fill 
orders and finally announced that it was out of print. 
A friend of mine, anxious to keep the work before the 
public, at my suggestion wrote to the publishers asking 
if the firm would sell him the plates. He was informed 
that the plates had been destroyed, ‘‘ melted down,” 
the book would no longer be published. The publishers 
having no further use for the copyright, I then sug- 
gested to my friend that he ask if they would sell it to 
him? They replied that the copyright was not for sale. 

Isn’t that a singular business situation? A business 
firm, not doing business for its health or for pleasure, 
will not sell at any price a property that will not other- 
wise yield it a dollar! If Mrs. Eddy’s rule prohibiting 
Christian Scientists to patronise a publisher who han- 
dles “ obnoxious literature,” and the Publication Com- 
mittee’s threat of a boycott did not operate here, what 
did? The world has lost an invaluable work: the truth 
has been suppressed. 

I should record the efforts of the faithful to counter- 
act the Milmine exposures at the time of their serial 
publication. The announcement produced consterna- 
tion in Christian-Sciencedom, and ways and means of 
meeting the facts were considered. A handy instru- 
ment presented itself in the person of Mrs. Sibyl 
Wilbur O’Brien. 


eh 


218 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Mrs. S. W. O’Brien, a reporter of The Boston Her- 
ald, and not a Christian Scientist, called upon me one 
morning, some months before the first publication of 
the McClure story and said she wanted an interview 
for her paper with Mrs. Eddy and asked how it might 
be obtained. So many disappointed newspaper people 
had told me of the difficulties in the way of such an 
interview, that I informed Mrs. O’Brien she wouldn’t 
get inside the Eddy house, but would be told, outside 
of the front door, that Mrs. Eddy never gave inter- 
views except by appointment. As a matter of fact 
such appointments were never made, for the reason 
that Mrs. Eddy’s feeble condition during the latter 
years of her life and her painfully emaciated aspect 
were rigourously guarded secrets. 

Mrs. O’Brien’s experience was precisely as predicted. 
Mr. Frye, the coachman-secretary, met her on the front 
porch and, after carefully closing the door behind him, 
announced that only by previous appointment could an 
interview be had with Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. O’Brien was 
disappointed, but not discouraged; and there shortly 
appeared an “interview” in the Herald. It did not 
contain a word of conversation with Mrs. Eddy, but 
overflowed with fulsome adulation. She was allowed 
only to gaze upon the sacred personality as it flitted 
past the door of the room in which the reporter sat. 
Mrs. O’Brien had failed in her purpose to get an inter- 
view, but her pretended interview commended her 
strongly to official Christian-Sciencedom. 

After the publication of the McClure History had 
begun, Mrs. O’Brien’s keen sense of the profitable dis- 
cerned an opportunity to benefit her bank account and 
she offered her services in the preparation of an anti- 
dote, an authorised history to be published contempo- 


SUPPRESSION 219 


raneously, and that, regardless of facts, should sound 
Mrs. Eddy’s praises to the very skies. The bargain 
was struck and the pages of a nondescript periodical 
called Human Life were found available. The pub- 
lisher of Human Life was a patent medicine proprietor 
of Boston, one W. F. Smith. Mrs. O’Brien got busy. 
She wrote. Heavens, how she wrote! Bold and ex- 
plicit denials of éstablished truth; even bolder and 
equally explicit affirmations of what was well known to 
be false; the most barefaced evasions, the most inept 
shufflings, the most maudlin attempts at apotheosis 
crowded from Mrs. O’Brien’s prancing pen; and the © 
faithful were delighted. Mrs. O’Brien was generously 
requited and her rhapsody became, and is today, the 
official, authorised life of Mrs. Eddy. It now bears 
the imprint of the Christian Science Publishing So- 
ciety; but the O’Brien part of its author’s name has 
been suppressed. Its implications were disturbing. 
Catholics are not welcomed to Mrs. Eddy’s church. 

Was it not beautifully appropriate that the author- 
ised life of the proprietor of a copyrighted “ religion ” 
denying the efficacy of drugs, written by an unbeliever, 
should have found its first public expression under the 
benevolent auspices of the proprietor of a patented 
medicine? 

This so-called authorised life of Mrs. Eddy has been 
placed, free of cost, in practically all of the public 
libraries of the country and, the McClure History. hav- 
ing been largely removed by Christian Science zealots, 
is today thé only really available “ history.” of the 
‘Christian Science movement; and it isa fiction from 
beginning to end. When one contemplates the results 
‘of the’ Christian Science methods of spreading the 
“truth,” how appalling is seen to be the efficacy of lies! 


220 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Third: Not only have Christian Science suppressive 
measures operated against works openly hostile or 
purely neutral, but harmful as the truth is harmful to 
falsehood, they have actually invaded the region of 
pure scholarship and given notice that no one shall any- 
where be permitted to state the facts of Mrs. Eddy’s 
career or give utterance to unfavourable comments 
upon her life and teachings. Encyclopedias have been 
induced to suppress informative articles and substitute 
colourless dope that gave nothing whatever to the in- 
vestigator. The most recent performance of this 
character has received much publicity and wide con- 
demnation; but its real inwardness remains to be 
disclosed. It is, as lawyers say, on all fours with 
the McClure’s Magazine history as published and 
suppressed. 

A firm of New York publishers recently published 
an elaborate History of American Literature, which, as 
the publishers say, ‘ furnishes a history of the litera- 
ture written in English in the United States from the 
first settlement to the end of the Nineteenth Century,” 
and add that “‘ the editors have secured the services of 
contributors, American and Canadian, who im all cases 
write with special knowledge of the topic assigned. 
The work is exact and authoritative.” This announce- 
ment is printed in large type on the paper cover of each 
volume and is the publishers’ guarantee. 

Wanting a chapter on books produced by “ sects bred 
and nourished by the heterogeneity of the American 
people and their freedom from any dominant creed,” 
the editors selected The Book of Mormon and Science 
and Health as typical of such writings; and to make 
sure that the subjects should receive ‘exact and 
authoritative”’ treatment by one “having special 


SUPPRESSION 221 


knowledge of the topics,” they asked Professor Wood- 
bridge Riley to write a chapter on these “ American 
Bibles.” 

Woodbridge Riley is the author of a number of 
books and articles on Psychology and Philosophy. 
His Ph.D. thesis at Yale was entitled The Founder 
of Mormonism; a Psychological Study of Joseph 
Smith, Jr. This book was publicly denounced 
by the President of the Mormon Church in the Salt 
Lake City Tabernacle. Dr. Riley’s chief interest has 
lain in American Philosophy. As Johnston Research 
Scholar in Johns Hopkins University, he published a 
volume of some six hundred pages on American Philos- 
ophy; The Early Schools. This was followed by a 
smaller volume carrying the speculative movements up 
to date, entitled American Thought from Puritanism 
to Pragmatism. While in Paris, in 1920, Dr. Riley 
delivered a series of lectures on Representative Ameri- 
cans at the Sorbonne. These appeared in French form 
under the title Le Génie Américain, with an introduc- 
tion by the celebrated French philosopher Henri 
Bergson. 

In connection with his studies in American Philos- 
ophy, Dr. Riley has investigated various normal and 
abnormal speculative movements. In this connection 
he has delivered addresses on different phases of 
Mental Healing in America for the Johns Hopkins 
Medical School, the International Psychological Con- 
gress at Geneva (1910), and also the annual ad- 
dress at Atlantic City before the American Medico- 
Psychological Association. This address appeared in 
the American Journal of Insanity. 

If the editors of The Cambridge History of Ameri- 
can Literature wanted a chapter on the Mormon and 


222 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


the Christian Science Bibles that should be primarily 
designed to please Mormons and Christian Scientists, 
they made a mistake in the selection of Dr. Riley. If 
they wanted treatment that should be honest and 
accurate in substance and fascinating in style, their 
choice was the best possible. 

In due time Dr. Riley’s contribution, entitled 
‘“‘ American Bibles,” and dealing with The Book of 


' § Mormon and Science and Health, appeared in the 


_ History. Fifteen hundred copies were sold; then, as 
_ in the case of the McClure work, something happened. 
' The publishers received a “ shock.” 

Dr. Riley is possessed of a sense of humour and 
everyone who has seriously studied Mrs. Eddy and her 
‘“‘ science ” has found them, in some aspects, the very 
funniest things that ever put on the garb of solemnity. 
Mark Twain remarked that he did not ‘“‘ see how any- 
one contemplating Mrs. Eddy’s career could deny to 
the Divine Being the possession of a sense of humour ”; 
and Dr. Riley doubtless found it hard to keep a 
straight face throughout. He knew Mrs. Eddy had 
been married at least three times and that she had 
written most voluminously on things religious; so with 
scientific exactness he spoke of her as a “ thrice- 
married female Trismegistus,” and playfully permitted 
himself to say that “ instead of a hall of fame contain- 
ing Newton, Copernicus, Columbus and Mary Baker 
Eddy, one would be tempted to substitute an obsolete 
set of waxworks—the Shaker seeress, Mother Ann Lee, 
the Portland mesmerist, Quimby, and transcendental- 
ism’s tedious archangel, Bronson Alcott.” 

Those who believe, or pretend they believe, Mrs. 
Eddy to have equalled Jesus Christ in purity and 
power, were, or felt it necessary to pretend to appear, 


SUPPRESSION 223 


outraged by Dr. Riley’s characterisation of their sacred 
personality as a thrice-married female Trismegistus. 
Christian Science culture couldn’t understand it, so it 
was deemed positively blasphemous. Let us examine 
the famous phrase a moment to see what possible 
ground for offence there was. 

It is well known that Mrs. Eddy had been married 
three times. Surely there was nothing offensive in the 
statement of that fact. If it is entirely creditable to 
marry once, as is commonly believed, is it not thrice 
creditable to do so entirely creditable a thing three 
several times? The poet has said that “ willingly to 
march to marriage requires the courage of a lion.” If 
the poet was well advised, does it not require the cour- 
age of three lions willingly to march to marriage three 
times? And is it not high praise of Mrs. Eddy to imply 
the possession of so dauntless a soul? But perhaps it 
was “ Trismegistus” that stuck in the Christian 
Science crop. Trismegistus, it appears, was a real, or 
imaginary, writer on religious themes of the second or 
third century. Can it be said to be a reflection upon 
Mrs. Eddy to liken her to a personality whose fame has 
endured for seventeen hundred years? But Christian 
Science susceptibilities are keen, and Dr. Riley was 
doomed to extinction. 

The New York Christian Science Committee on 
Publication, in the person of one Gilmore, donned its 
most pious demeanour and solemnly presented itself at 
the office of the publishers. Did the firm know that 
it had sanctioned the perpetration of a sacrilege? Was 
it aware that through its instrumentality the religious 
feelings of ‘two millions” of people had been out- 
raged? Did it realise that no one of those ‘ two mil- 
lion” readers of books would look at any publication 


224 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


bearing its imprint so long as it published “ obnoxious 
literature” of the Woodbridge Riley variety? In 
tones admitting of no discussion its expurgation was 
demanded. 

With the demand of the Christian Science Committee 
on Publication the publishers hastened to comply. 
‘“‘ American Bibles,” by Woodbridge Riley, Ph.D., was 
forthwith torn from the volume; copies that had been 
sold were recalled; a colourless article was substituted, 
and, to justify their affront to scholarship, the pub- 
lishers publicly denounced Dr. Riley’s performance as 
nothing less than outrageous, shocking beyond any- 
thing in their previous experience. 

Fourth: To set at rest forever the controversy re- 
garding Mrs. Eddy’s indebtedness to Phineas P. 
Quimby for Christian Science as a healing system, Mr. 
Horatio W. Dresser prevailed upon the representative 
of Quimby’s son, into whose hands the father’s manu- 
scripts and Mrs. Eddy’s letters to Quimby had come, 
to permit their publication in full, and they were ac- 
cordingly published in 1921, in a volume of nearly five 
hundred pages, entitled, The Quimby Manuscripts, 
Showing the Discovery of Spiritual Healing and the 
Origin of Christian Science. 

Language could not have been formulated that would 
have expressed more explicitly and unreservedly her 
complete obligation to Quimby for the healing system 
called Christian Science than did Mrs. Eddy’s grateful 
and affectionate, self-humiliating, Quimby-glorifying 
letters. A round score of them appeared; but they 
were promptly suppressed. 

It so happens that private letters may not be pub- 
lished without the consent of the writer, and by direc- 
tion of Mrs, Eddy’s representative publication of this 


SUPPRESSION 225 


evidence of the fraudulent character of her claim to 
“ discovery ” of Christian Science was suppressed. 

It may be that truth crushed to earth will rise again; 
but it cannot be denied that there is an extraordinary 
vitality in lies wrapped in the mantle of righteousness 
that can invoke the law for truth’s suppression. 


IV 
SWINDLING 


“ That shameless old swindler, Mother Eddy.” 
—Mark Twaln. 


“T am as pure as the angels”’—Mary BAKER Eppy. 


of her long life, a grossly ignorant person. 

She professed to have read the Old Testament 
in the original Hebrew and the New Testament in the 
original Greek; but that was pure fiction. She pro- 
fessed to have been kept from school because, as she 
said, of her father’s belief that her brain was too large 
for her body; while, as a matter of fact, at fifteen years 
of age she was in classes with children of nine at the 
little one-room village school. She professed to have 
graduated from “ Sanborn’s Academy,” when there was 
no such ‘‘ Academy,” and the elementary private school 
conducted for a while by Sanborn never “ graduated ” 
anyone. 

There came a time in Mrs. Eddy’s amazing career 
when contact with people of some culture in her fol- 
lowing made it impossible for her to conceal the pro- 
fundity of her own ignorance, and she was ready with 
an explanation that completely satisfied the most per- 
plexed.” ‘‘ After my discovery of Christian Science,” 
she said, “ most of the knowledge I had gleaned from 
school-books vanished like a dream. Learning was so 


226 


Mi: BAKER EDDY was, during the whole 


SWINDLING | 227 


illumined that grammar was eclipsed.” However it 
may have been with learning, there can be no doubt of 
grammar’s total eclipse. The brain too large for her 
body, however colossal its proportions, could not be 
expected to contain the scraps of knowledge picked up 
at the primary school together with the huge volume 
of data comprehended within the scope of her great 
“* discovery.” 

Upon her death, at eighty-nine years of age, Mrs. 
Eddy’s estate was appraised at three million dollars, 
her “ library ” being valued at five. All the thought of 
all the ages, history, science, philosophy and the rest, 
was a closed book to the professed ‘“‘ Founder and 
Discoverer of Christian Science”; but one thing she 
knew and did not permit to escape, dreamlike or other- 
wise. She plumbed to the depths the credulity of the 
human mind, or rather, found it to go beyond plum- 
met’s sound. No one ever tested it more thoroughly, 
and she found no absurdity beyond its scope. And 
here Mrs. Eddy and Mark Twain were in agreement, 
that “ The absurdity the human race can’t swallow 
hasn’t been invented yet.” She harvested three million 
dollars from the gullibility of her followers, and mar- 
velled only at her moderation. It might just as well 
have been thirty million. 

Mark Twain characterised Mrs. Eddy in the terms 
quoted at the head of this chapter because of her claim 
that she had written the first and final editions of the 
book, Science and Heaith. He had studied the two 
volumes, and within them found incontrovertible proof 
that the same hand could not have written the crude 
original and its polished successors. Admitting her / 
authorship of the book of 1875, he knew that none of 
the editions after 1885 came from her uncultured pen. 


228 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


It is well known, of course, that in 1885 Mrs. Eddy 
employed James Henry Wiggin, a gentleman of broad 
culture, deep learning and high literary skill, not to 
revise, but to rewrite her book, and that for a period of 
four years all of her writings had the benefit of his 
competent hand. One edition of the great book con- 
tained a whole chapter, entitled Wayside Hints, every 
word of it Wiggin’s composition, and it became a part 
of the inspired volume. Mrs. Eddy wrote Wiggin that 
her friends, believing it to be hers, ‘‘ thought it a gem.” 

But now I am going to show Mrs. Eddy to have been 
a “swindler ” of quite another kind, to have deliber- 
ately defrauded her friends, the confiding followers, 
who looked to her as the bearer of a divine message 
and regarded her as co-equal with Christ, out of their 
base, material property in secret violation of the law 
of the land. 

Mrs. Eddy’s career is full of mmconsistencies; but 
that is common to frail humanity. ‘“ Do I contradict 
myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large, I 
contain multitudes,” said the great poet of American 
democracy. Mrs. Eddy contradicted, not herself, but 
God. That is to say, professing to “ voice God,” to 
speak by divine inspiration, the Infallible One was 
made to utter and to act contradictions. ‘The All-Wise 
is without variableness or shadow of turning. Than 
Mrs. Eddy, the weather-cock was not more changeable. 
Voicing God is risky business for the forgetful garru- 
lous. Such an one should voice his message and ever 
after be dumb. Mrs. Eddy’s memory was not of the 
best and restraint was unknown to her tongue. Hence 
the divine vacillations. 

Speaking of her book, Mrs. Eddy said: “I should 
blush to speak of Science and Health as I have, were it 


SWINDLING 229 


of human origin and I, apart from God, its author.” 
With such unwonted clearness Mrs. Eddy claimed di- 
vine origin for her book, and in the “ divine ” original 
she said: 


“We have no need of creeds and church organisation 
to sustain or explain a demonstrable platform.” . 

“The mistake the disciples of Jesus made, to found 
religious organisations and church rites, if indeed they did 
this, was one the Master did not make.” ... 

“No time was lost by our Master in organising rites 


and ceremonies, or on proselyting for certain forms of 
belief.” 


Thus, in 1875, when her book was first published, 
Mrs. Eddy communicated to a somewhat inattentive 
world the views of God. The mistake of the disciples 
was not to be imitated. For Christian Science, there 
was to be no creed, no rites or ceremonies, no church 
organisation, no proselyting. But, within three years, 
she applied to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for 
a church charter; constituted herself president of the 
church; in due time formulated a creed to which all 
must subscribe; established elaborate rites and cere- 
monies to which all must conform and developed a 
system of proselyting that no church ever surpassed in 
thoroughness and efficiency. Forgotten or brushed 
aside were God’s judgments; imitated was the avowed 
mistake of the disciples; disregarded was the approved 
example of Christ. 

If there were contradiction and inconsistency in the 
performance, there was also method. The one control- 
ling purpose of Mrs. Eddy’s life for many years was to 
put money in her purse. After she did that, her ab- 


230 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


sorbing passion was to have absolute power. While 
Christian Science was still unknown of men, she 
glimpsed the pecuniary possibilities of a large church 
following obedient to her slightest wish. A three-ring 
circus may be a money-maker, but it involves a large 
outlay of capital and great risk: while a church organ- 
isation, autocratically governed, financed by the faith- 
ful and in which the highest duty is obedience, may be 
made as profitable as a circus. Mrs. Eddy’s church 
became her “ colossal, gigantic, mammoth ” three-ring 
show, yielding a revenue to its owner calculated to turn 
Barnum’s green with envy. 

Comparison of the Christian Science Church to a 
three-ring circus is more apt than would, at first blush, 
appear: for it makes a triple appeal, to the soul, to the 
body, to the purse. For money, it will abolish the ills 
of the spirit. For money, it will abolish the ills that 
afflict the body. For money, it will fatten the leanest 
purse. I have elsewhere shown how Mrs. Eddy made 
her church fill her purse. 

Mrs. Eddy’s first feeble attempt at church organisa- 
tion was made, as I have said, in 1879. Gathering to- 
gether her little band of followers she launched the 
Church of Christ, Scientist, at Lynn, a suburb of Bos- 
ton; but its voyage was destined to be stormy and its 
fate, the rocks of discord and dissension. In 1881 the 
most influential members withdrew because, as they 
said in a signed statement, of Mrs. Eddy’s “ departure 
from the straight and narrow road (which alone leads 
to growth of Christ-like virtues), made manifest by 
frequent ebullitions of temper, love of money, and the 
appearance of hypocrisy.” Intimate personal inter- 
course with her, in 1881, led eight sincere and self- 
respecting Christian Scientists, for the reasons stated, 


SWINDLING 231 


over their signatures, to repudiate the leadership of 
and withdraw from fellowship with the President of 
their church organisation. From early girlhood, when 
her “frequent ebullitions of temper,” tantrums, he 
called them, reduced her hard-headed old father, Mark 
Baker, to a condition of abject servility, to her extreme 
old-age, ungovernable temper was a marked character- 
istic of Mrs. Eddy’s behaviour. “ Ebullition ” nicely 
describes her boiling, hysterical wrath when even 
mildly opposed. ‘“‘ Love of money’? Perhaps the 
strongest count in any indictment that can be framed 
against her is the consuming love of money; and 
nothing could have been more audacious than the 
methods employed to compel the members of her 
church to furnish it. 

If I know anything about hypocrisy, it consists in 
falsifying professions by acts; and the acts of Mrs. 
Eddy’s whole life can be cited to give the lie to her 
professions of disinterestedness and eagerness to serve 
mankind. 

“Upon this rock will I build my church.” So, 
Peter; so, Mrs. Eddy. The land upon which Mrs. 
Eddy’s church in Boston stands is not rock, but mud 
intermixed with filling of any kind available; and over 
it the water of the Charles River at one time ebbed and 
flowed. But that is not the point. What I am going 
to show is that the land was acquired by Mrs. Eddy, 
without their knowledge, through a deliberate fraud 
perpetrated upon Christian Scientists and at a cost to 
them of just about six thousand dollars actual money. 
The facts of this transaction have never before been 
disclosed; but I have known them for many years and 
stand ready to establish them by the strictest of 
legal proof. 


232 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


In the summer of 1886, a small group of Mrs. 
Eddy’s devotees bought, of Mr. Nathan Matthews, a 
plot of land on Falmouth Street, Boston, taking title 
in the name of one of their number as trustee, upon 
which to build a church. The price was about eleven 
thousand dollars. The purchasers paid down two thou- 
sand dollars and gave Mr. Matthews a mortgage for 
the balance, $8,763.50. The zealous believers then 
proceeded to raise the money to pay off the mortgage; 
and, by solicitations, fairs, concerts and like customary 
devices, succeeded in reducing the mortgage to a little 
less than five thousand dollars. It might have been 
still further reduced by the money secured, had not the 
Christian Science custodian of the fund absconded with 
a considerable sum. It thus appears, as stated above, 
that Mrs. Eddy’s Boston followers had put approxi- 
mately six thousand dollars in cash into the property 
upon which they were to construct their church in her 
honour and for the worship of God according to her 
“religion.” It was resolved not to build until the title 
had been cleared of the mortgage debt. The treasurer’s 
defalcation was a discouragement and increased the 
difficulty of raising money. The contributors were not 
pleased that their contributions had been stolen, and 
there was a marked disinclination to take any more 
chances. Thus the project was delayed and dragged 
along for three years. 

Her friends’ trouble was Mrs. Eddy’s opportunity. 
To befriend them? To contribute, as she well might 
from her then large resources, the balance due on the 
mortgage, relieve the land from the encumbrance and 
fill the hearts of her friends with grateful rejoicing? 
By no means. The distress of her friends was Mrs. 
Eddy’s opportunity to take advantage of them, to 


SWINDLING 233 


brush them from her path, to gobble up their six thou- 
sand dollars and dispossess them of the land for her 
own purposes. That is what she actually did, and she 
accomplished it through chicanery and fraud, with the 
help of a disreputable lawyer, afterwards disbarred. I 
purpose to state the facts of this odious transaction so 
plainly that the simplest mind can understand them, 
and I will stand by them anywhere and any time they 
may be called in question. 

Mrs. Eddy had seen the financial possibilities of a 
church in Boston, the opportunities for using its mem- 
bership for pecuniary gain. She had sized it up as “a 
sure thing”; but she wanted ‘“‘ to get in on the ground 
floor.” ‘“‘ Mrs. Eddy was nobody’s fool,” as Mr. Wig- 
gin, who probably knew her better than anyone else, 
said, and her business sense was marvellously keen 
and accurate. 

The “ rock ” upon which Mrs. Eddy built her church 
was, to borrow Mark Twain’s careful and precise desig- 
nation, a swindle. Let us see what Mrs. Eddy, herself, 
says about this performance. 

In her book, Pulpit and Press, she says: ‘‘ Owing to 
a heavy loss [the treasurer’s defalcation] they [her 
friends] were unable to pay the mortgage, therefore I 
paid it and through trustees gave back the land to 
the church.” 

This is an utterly false statement, so proven by the 
public records in the Registry of Deeds in the City of 
Boston. She did not pay the mortgage; she bought it, 
and it remained an encumbrance upon the land pre- 
cisely as before. Only the ownership of the mortgage 
changed. Mrs. Eddy stepped into the shoes of Mr. 
Matthews. She acquired his claim and his rights 
against her friends, The most unfriendly, the most 


234 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


unkind thing the owner of a mortgage can do is to 
foreclose it. This unkind, this unfriendly thing, Mrs. 
Eddy did with her mortgage upon the property of her 
friends. She foreclosed it. A legal foreclosure was 
clearly within Mrs. Eddy’s legal right; but the fore- 
closure was not legal. It was fraudulent. 

Neither did Mrs. Eddy “ give back the land to the 
church.” The church, for which the land had been 
bought and the six thousand dollars paid, ceased to 
exist and the six thousand dollars was lost to the sub- 
scribers—every penny of it. The treasurer stole a 
considerable sum; but their “‘ revered Leader ” swin- 
dled them out of several times as much. When Mrs. 
Eddy finally got a record, but illegal, title to the land, 
she conveyed it to trustees for the establishment of a 
new church in which there was no authoritative voice 
but hers, and which she used to put money and more 
money and still more money into her purse, until it 
fattened to the bursting-point. 

Mrs. Eddy acquired the land, three years after her 
friends had bought it for eleven thousand dollars, and 
it had in the meantime increased in value. It is prob- 
ably true that at the time she conveyed it to trustees its 
value was not less than twenty thousand. She says so, 
and I am happy to be able to record my belief that her 
statement Is true. It cost her only five thousand dol- 
lars and had cost her friends eleven thousand, of which 
they had paid six; but she never gave publicity to the 
small amount of her contribution or the fact that the 
involuntary cash contribution of her friends was larger 
by a thousand dollars than her own. The poor, deluded 
creatures never dared call Mrs. Eddy to account, and 
meekly permitted themselves to be despoiled. 

For the information of those, happily unacquainted 


SWINDLING 235 


with mortgage foreclosures, it should be explained that 
a mortgage is a claim, a lien, upon land given by the 
owner for borrowed money or a part of the purchase 
price; and for any violation of the conditions of the 
mortgage, failure to pay interest or principal when due, 
for instance, the lender and owner of the mortgage, 
may foreclose, may sell the land at public auction, and 
from the proceeds of the sale pay himself all due upon 
the mortgage, turning over the balance, if any, to the 
unfortunate owner of the land. The purchaser at the 
foreclosure sale becomes the owner of the land and 
may dispossess the former owner at his pleasure. In- 
stead of paying the mortgage, as she says, Mrs. Eddy 
bought and pretended to foreclose it. 
' Mrs. Eddy wanted to obtain title to the land in ques- 
tion for a quarter of its value. She says it was valued 
at twenty thousand dollars and she wanted to get it for 
five thousand. She wanted to cheat her friends out of 
». the six thousand they had, with so much difficulty, 
raised and paid on the price of the land, and in one 
Baxter E. Perry, then a lawyer in Boston, she found a 
capable and conscienceless instrument. Perry, as I 
have stated, was subsequently disbarred, turned out of 
his profession, by the Supreme Judicial Court of Mas- 
\sachusetts for other professional irregularities. As the 
success of her scheme, without the loss of her Boston 
following, depended upon secrecy, Mrs. Eddy’s name 
did not appear in any of the foreclosure proceedings; 
but her money financed them. She furnished the 
slightly less than five thousand dollars necessary to 
buy the mortgage of Mr. Matthews; but the transfer, 
the assignment of the mortgage, was not made to her, 
but to Perry’s brother; and it was the brother, acting 
as a “‘ dummy ” for Mrs. Eddy, who went through the 


236 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


forms, some of the forms, of foreclosure. On the face 
of it, and so far as they knew, the foreclosure was 
being made by a perfect stranger to the owners of the 
land. They never, then, dreamed that the hostile act 
was being secretly directed and financed by their 
honoured leader and revered ‘‘ Mother.” Like Brer 
Rabbit, she “lay low.” Indeed, she even expressed 
sympathy with her dear friends in their extremity. The 
precise facts of this heartless jugglery are as follows: 
Managing the proceeding for Mrs. Eddy, Perry, 
having the assignment of the mortgage to his brother, 
published the usual notice of foreclosure. The prop- 
erty was advertised for sale on the premises at a date 
named in the notice. At that time and at that place 
quite a number of Christian Scientists, large subscrib- 
ers to the fund, together with strangers attracted by 
the advertisement, assembled to make sure that the 
land was not sacrificed for a fraction of its value. No 
one representing the assignee of the mortgage, Mrs. 
Eddy’s dummy, and no auctioneer appeared. The land 
was not offered for sale; no one had an opportunity to 
bid; there was no sale. Later, on the same day, Perry 
stated that the sale had been made at his office and that 
his brother had bought the land for the balance due 
upon the mortgage. It should be remembered that the 
legal title to the land when it was bought of Mr. 
Matthews was taken in the name of one of the Chris- 
tian Scientists, who, as treasurer of the fund, it was be- 
lieved could be trusted, and that he had absconded with 
the accumulations in his hands and could not be lo- 
cated. As his would have been the initiative of any 
proceeding to set aside the foreclosure and he had sub- 
stantial reasons for keeping out of sight, Mrs. Eddy’s 
poor dupes deemed themselves remediless and gave up 


SE ——— 


SWINDLING 237 


in despair. For precisely the same reason, Mrs. Eddy 
deemed herself secure. So it proved. Perry’s title was 
not legal and could at any time have been voided by the 
courts; and Perry could convey no better title than he 
had himself. It was not until three years later that 
Mrs. Eddy herself acquired a record title. By her di- 
rection the title passed through several others before 
she found it expedient to take title herself; and her title 
was no better than Perry’s, which she knew to be fraud- 
ulent: When she conveyed the land to trustees, who 
subsequently built upon it her Boston church, the so- 
called “‘ Mother Church,” she conveyed no better than 
the fraudulent title she held. And thus it was that Mrs. 
Eddy’s friends lost their land and their money, and that 
she gobbled them up—land and money. I should add 
that at a date later than the foreclosure proceedings, 
The Massachusetts Title Insurance Company was 
asked to insure the title and, for reasons best known 
to itself, refused. 

“‘ Confirmation strong as holy writ ” of the real char- 
acter of this transaction is found in Mrs. Eddy’s own 
subsequent explanation. 

In course of time she was made aware that certain 
of her oldest followers were daring to question the 
regularity of the pretended foreclosure, and some had 
even been so venturesome as to ask her about it. Here 
and there an irreverent husband, lamenting his wife’s 
Christian Science obsession, declared the whole thing 
to have been a trick and a fraud. Hoping to allay sus- 
picion, in an unguarded moment Mrs. Eddy permitted 
herself an attempted justification, and in The Christian 
Science Journal said: 


“TI had this desirable site transferred in a circuitous, 


238 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


novel way the wisdom of which a few persons have since 
scrupled. I knew that to God’s gift, foundation and 
superstructure, no one could hold a wholly material title. 
The land and the church standing upon it must be con- 
veyed through a type representing the true nature of the 
gift; a type morally and spiritually inalienable, but ma- 
terially questionable—even after the manner that all spir- 
itual good comes to Christian Scientists, to the end of 
taxing their faith in God and their adherence to the su- 
periority of the claims of spirit over matter or merely 
legal titles. . . . Our title to God’s acres here will be safe 
and sound ‘ when we can read our title clear’ to heavenly 
mansions,” 


Mrs. Eddy’s early followers, with surprisingly accu- 
rate estimate of her character, withdrew from her first 
church in 1881, because, as they publicly charged, of 
her ‘‘ frequent ebullitions of temper,’ her “love of 
money,” and “the appearance of hypocrisy ”; and 
these are the outstanding characteristics of the 
woman’s whole life. 

Could there be a more beautiful, truly beautiful, 
specimen of hypocrisy than the above passage from the 
“inspired” pen of the “ Discoverer and Founder of 
Christian Science’? Without disclosing her participa- 
tion, she had ousted her devoted followers from land 
upon which they had paid six thousand dollars. Not 
one cent of their money did any one of them recover. 
To her own five thousand dollars, she added their six 
and took it and the land from them. Openly she com- 
forted them with words of sympathy and compassion; 
secretly she picked their pockets. And when, after 
several years, she dared take title in her own name and 
thus disclose her ownership, she threw out a screen of 
pious words and spiritual assurances. ‘“ God’s gift,” 


SWINDLING 239 


“ God’s acres,” “ faith in God,” “ claims of the spirit,” 
“ spiritual good ” and ‘“‘ heavenly mansions ” were held 
before the eyes of the faithful to conceal the fact that 
they had been betrayed and plundered. 

But she let the cat out of the bag. For once dis- 
cretion failed her. She admitted that some had 
‘“‘ scrupled ” her method, thought it dishonest; that the 
performance was ‘‘ materially questionable,” that is to 
say, abominable, and that her title was not “ legal,” in 
other words, was fraudulent. 


Foul deeds will rise, 
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes. 


Let it not be supposed that this was an isolated in- 
stance of Mrs. Eddy’s lack of scruple in attaining her 
ends. It is but one of many similarly conscienceless 
performances and by no means the worst. . She was 
dishonest through and through. Her life was one 
brazen, heartless lie. Her own interest was her first 
consideration, always; and her inner self differed from 
her outward pretensions as night differs from day. , 

And nearly a hundred thousand sincere people hold 
this shameless woman, with Christ, in their hearts! 

Verily, the credulity of the so-called Dark Ages was 
not more dense than the gullibility of what it pleases 
us to call an enlightened time! 


V 


LIES 





“T think Mr. will im candour concede that she | 
[Mrs. Eddy] ts, by a large percentage, the most erratic, 
contradictory and untrustworthy witness that has occu- | 
pied the stand since the days of the lamented Ananias.”” | 

—Mark TwaIin. 


bridge Riley, came under the ban and got his 

scholarly essay on Christian Science sup- 
pressed, because he irreverently spoke of its “ foun- 
der ” as a “‘ thrice-married female Trismegistus.” My 
sympathy was with worthy Trismegistus. Dr. Riley, 
it seemed to me, was a little hard on the garrulous old 
fellow; but the Eddyite objection passes my compre- 
hension. They were as angry as if Trismegistus had 
been the world’s most famous hypnotist. Casting 
about for an appellation that would not cruelly reflect 
upon the long-since dead, I think I have stumbled 
upon the very thing. 

Many years ago there flourished a Russian man of 
letters, who became famous as the most prodigious liar 
that, up to that time, the world had ever known; and 
he was proud of his reputation. Striving to outdo all 
rivals, he became a very master in the art of falsifica- 
tion; and, until the advent of Christian Science, re- 
mained peerless. To have a later and still greater 
master of his art called by his name, he would, could 


240 


Mi good friend and collaborator, Dr. Wood- 


LIES 241 


he know of it, deem the greatest of compliments. I 
have been under the ban now these many years, and 
not, as yet, suppressed. So I am emboldened to sug- 
gest to Dr. Riley that in place of the reflection upon 
Trismegistus, he should have used this cognomen (fair 
and just to both experts in fabrication )—the “ thrice- 
married female Munchausen.” Let me weave a gar- 
land of her obvious falsehoods for the brow of this 
veracious female successor of the imaginative Baron. 
She shall have her crown. 

No. 1: ‘‘ Although it is duly estimated by business 
characters and learned scholars that I lead and am 
obeyed by three hundred thousand people at this date 
[1898]. The most distinguished newspapers ask me to 
write on the most important subjects. Lords and 
ladies, earls, princes, marquises and marchionesses 
from abroad write to me in the most complimentary 
manner. Our senators and members of Congress call 
on me for counsel.” 

Munchausen never did anything better than that. 
Accounting for her total ignorance, as I have shown, 
she said, “‘ After my discovery of Christian Science, 
most of the knowledge I had gleaned from books van- 
ished like a dream. Learning was so illumined, that 
grammar was eclipsed.” Knowledge had vanished and 
grammar was in eclipse, but as learning, without knowl- 
edge, was illumined, no wonder British royalty and 
nobility, not to speak of American statesmen, sought 
her favour and advice. 

No. 2: “In 1883 a million people acknowledge and 
attest the blessings of this mental system of treating 
disease. 

In 1910, the United States government gave the total 
as sixty-five thousand. 


242 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


No. 3: “‘ While Mrs. Eddy was in a suburban town 
of Boston, she brought out one apple-blossom on an 
apple-tree in January, when the ground was covered 
with snow; and in Lynn demonstrated in the floral line 
some such small things.” ‘This is written by her type- 
writer and signed with her autograph. 

To argue the untruthfulness of the apple-tree episode 
would insult the intelligence of a moron. 

No. 4: “It was not an uncommon occurrence in my 
own church for the sick to be healed by my sermons. 
Many pale cripples went into the church leaning on 
crutches, who went out carrying them on their 
shoulders.” 

Since no “ pale cripple,’”’ nor anyone else, ever testi- 
fied to the event, only a Christian Scientist will be able 
to believe it. Mrs. Eddy had good reason to know 
their credulity to be limitless. It sometimes seems as 
if she sought to measure their capacity for swallowing 
absurdities. 

No. 5: “‘ P. P. Quimby stands upon the plain of wis- 
dom with his truth. As he speaks as never man before 
spake and heals as never men healed since Christ, is he 
not identified with the truth? ” This before Quimby’s 
death. After it, she said: ‘‘ Quimby’s treatment was 
never considered anything more than mesmerism.” 

Reconciled these statements cannot be. As express- 
ing her own belief, both statements may be false: both 
cannot be true. Before Quimby’s death, she thought 
he healed as Christ healed. After he had died and she 
had appropriated his system, she sought to discredit 
her teacher by calling him a mesmerist. 

No. 6: Before Quimby’s death: “ I am up and about 
today by the help of the Lord (Quimby). I am to all 
who see me a living wonder, a living monument to your 


LIES 243 


power.” After his death: “I was not healed until 
after the death of Quimby.” 

Quimby did, and he didn’t. She was healed by him, 
and she wasn’t! 

No. 7: Before Quimby’s death: ‘‘ Quimby healed the 
sick as Jesus did.” After he had died: “‘ Quimby was 
a magnetic doctor.” 

If we can think Mrs. Eddy thought that Jesus was 
a magnetic doctor, we can believe both of these state- 
ments expressed Mrs. Eddy’s belief; otherwise, not. 

No. 8: Before Quimby’s death: ‘ At present I am 
too much in error to elucidate the truth and can touch 
only the key-note, for Quimby’s master-hand to awake 
the harmony” After he had died: “I saw Quimby 
about twenty years ago and aimed to help him.” 

Before his death, Quimby’s was the master-hand. 
Long after she had made his teaching her ‘“‘ discovery,” 
she recalled helping the ‘‘ master-hand”’ sound forth 
its harmonies. 

No. 9: Before Quimby’s death: “ Jesus taught as 
never man does; who, then, is wise but you, Quimby? ” 
After he had died: ‘‘ Quimby was illiterate. He was a 
very unlearned man.” 

Believe both of those things, she could not. 

No. 10: Just after Quimby’s death: ‘“ Rest shall re- 
ward him who has made us whole, seeking, though 
tremblers, where his footsteps trod.” When she had 
made his work her own: “I used to take his scribblings 
and fix them over for him and give him my thoughts 
and language, which, as I understand it, were far in 
advance of his own.” 

Before the thought of stealing Quimby’s system had 
entered her head, Mrs. Eddy thought of herself as 
tremblingly following his footsteps; and, when taxed 


244 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


with the appropriation, she recalled that, for in ad- 
vance of Quimby, she had sought to polish up his 
“ scribblings.” 

Believe that she believed herself following and in 
advance of Quimby at one and the same time you 
cannot. 

No. 11: “ The land, whereon stands the First Church 
of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, was first purchased by 
the church and Society. Owing to a heavy loss, they 
were unable to pay the mortgage, therefore I paid it 
and through trustees gave back the land to the church.” 

The falsity of this I have shown: that the records of 
the Registry of Deeds in Boston conclusively prove. 
She didn’t pay the mortgage; she didn’t give back the 
land to the church. She swindled her trustful friends 
out of their property, and then pretended to have been 
their benefactor. 

No. 12: We do not too harshly judge a woman who 
prevaricates, within reasonable limits, regarding her 
age; but, for a woman who proclaimed truth to be God, 
a departure from the truth by sixteen years is “ tew 
mutch.” Being fifty-six, she gave her age for the 
official record of her third marriage as forty years. 

No. 13: “ These words of St. Matthew have special 
application to Christian Scientists, namely: ‘ It is not 
good to marry.’ ” 

After three marriages, Mrs. Eddy could perhaps 
testify that, judging from experience, it is not good to 
marry. She inveighed against marriage almost as 
much as if, instead of having been three times married, 
she had been three times jilted. But she distorts Holy 
Writ to bolster her prejudice. St. Matthew did not, of 
course, say what she puts into his mouth; but he does 
quote Jesus as saying, ‘‘ For this cause shall a man 


LIES 245 


leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto 
his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.” There has 
never been a marriage in a Christian Science church. 
Mrs. Eddy would not permit it. 

No. 14: “It is a fact, well understood, that I begged 
the students who first gave me the endearing appella- 
tion ‘ mother’ not to name me thus. But without my 
consent the name spread like wildfire. I still think the 
name is not applicable to me.”—Mrs, Eddy, in New 
York Sun, Jan. 17, 1903. 

This falsehood must have nonplussed the faithful, 
hundreds of whom had received letters from Mrs. Eddy 
signed, ‘‘ Mother.” This is especially true of the 
officers of her church. Not only that, but all the faith- 
ful knew their Manual of by-laws, every one of which 
was of ‘‘ Mother’s”’ authorship. Section 1 of Article 
XXII, as it was when Mrs. Eddy’s letter was printed 
in The Sun, is as follows: . 


“The Title of Mother. In the year 1895 loyal Chris- 
tian Scientists had given to the author of their textbook, 
the Founder and Discoverer of Christian Science, the in- 
dividual endearing name of Mother. Therefore, if a stu- 
dent of Christian Science shall apply this title either to 
herself or to others, except as the term for kinship accord- 
ing to the flesh, it shall be regarded by the church as an 
indication of disrespect for their Pastor-Emeritus and un- 
fitness to be a member of the Mother Church.” 


She begged her students not to call her mother, and 
still thought it was not applicable to her; took it to 
herself and used it constantly in her correspondence 
and threatened with excommunication any woman of 
her church who dared similarly apply it to herself or 
another. ; 


246 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


No. 15: When the Earl of Dunmore (who subse- 
quently died of the disease of which Christian Science 
had “ cured”? him) was dangling in Mrs. Eddy’s train, 
she faked a genealogy showing her descent in a straight 
line from a scion of the British aristocracy, and had it 
published in the Ladies’ Home Journal for November, 
1903. The article was preceded by the following an- 
nouncement: “The writing of this article and the 
making of the illustrations on the opposite page were 
done with the special permission of Mrs. Eddy, and 
both pages, having been seen by her in proof, received 
her full approval.” 

In the course of the article the following paragraph 
appeared: 


“Among Mrs, Eddy’s ancestors was Sir John MacNeil, 
a Scotch knight, prominent in British politics and Am- 
bassador to Persia. Her great-grandfather was the Right 
Hon. Sir John MacNeil, of Edinburgh, Scotland. Mrs. 
Eddy is the only survivor of her father’s family, which 
bore the coat-of-arms of the ancient MacNeils. The 
motto is Vincere aut mors (conquer or die). Surrounding 
the shield and enclosed in a heavy wreath is the motto of 
the Order of the Bath, Tria juncta in uno (Three joined 
in one). To these family traditions Mrs. Eddy has but 
one heir by her first husband, Col. George Washington 
Glover, of Charleston, S. C.” 


The paragraph above quoted renders the significance 
of the following letter perfectly clear: 


“To the Editor of Truth: [London] 
“¢ Sire 

“T shall be glad if you think this untruth contained in 
the enclosed article, suitable for correction. 


LIES 247 


“T am the only married grandchild of the late Right 
Hon. Sir John MacNeil, G. C. B., of Edinburgh, who 
was prominent in British politics and Ambassador to Per- 
sia, and Mrs. Eddy is certainly not my daughter. 

“My mother, Margaret Ferooza MacNeil, was the only 
child of his that reached maturity, though he was three 
times married. She married my father, Duncan Stewart, 
R. N., now captain, retired, and died in 1871. Of her six 
children, one died unmarried three years ago; five survive, 
of whom four are unmarried. 

“Tam the wife of Commander N. G. Macalister, who 
is at present inspection officer of coastguard for Aberdeen 
Division. 

“ Faithfully, 
“ FLORENCE MACALISTER.” 


If Mrs. Eddy’s tale of her ancestry were true, she 
must have been born before her mother. But it would 
lay no great demand on her followers to believe that! 

No. 16: “I then withdrew [1866] from society 
about three years to ponder my mission, to search the 
Scriptures, to find the science of mind that should take 
the things of God and show them to the creature and 
reveal the great curative principle, God.” 

By the oath of Horace T. Wentworth, Catherine 
Isabel Clapp, Lucy Holmes, and Charles O. Went- 
worth, and by Mrs. Eddy’s writing in their possession, 
photographs of which I have, Mrs. Eddy is shown, 
during the three years she mentions, to have lived with 
Mrs. Sally Wentworth at Stoughton, Mass., and to 
have taught a system of mental healing she said she 
had learned from Quimby. In all her writings, she 
never mentioned Stoughton nor the Wentworths. In 
my Religio-Medical Masquerade, I have paralleled 
passages from the Wentworth manuscripts of Mrs. 


248 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Eddy’s Extracts from the Writings of P. P. Quimby, 
with passages from her book showing identity of 
thought, and every curative feature of Christian 
Science. As late as 1870, she was teaching Christian 
Science and openly attributing it to Quimby. There- 
after she discovered that she discovered it herself 
in 1866. 


No. 17: “ There are one hundred and sixty applications 
lying on the desk before me for the primary class in the 
Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and I cannot do my 
best work for a class that contains over one quarter of 
that number. If all these should be taught, another large 
number would be waiting for the same class, and the other 
three courses delayed. ‘The work is more than one person 
can accomplish, but the demand is for my exclusive teach- 
ing, and dissatisfaction with any other, which leaves me no 
alternative but to give up the whole thing. 

“Deeply regretting the disappointment this must occa- 
sion, and with grateful acknowledgments to the public, I 
now close my college. 

” Mary BAKER Eppy.” 


The foregoing is from The Christian Science Journal, 
September, 1889. 


“‘ She closed her college, October 29, 1889, in the height 
of its prosperity, with a deep-lying conviction that the 
next two years of her life should be given to the prepara- 
tion of the revision, in 1891, of Science and Health.” 


The last foregoing is from Preface to Science and 
Health, 1896. 


“My conscientious scruples about diplomas, the recent 


LIES 249 


experience of the church fresh in my thoughts, and the 
growing conviction that everyone should build on his own 
foundation, subject to the one builder and maker, God,— 
all these considerations moved me to close my flourishing 
school,” 


The last foregoing is from page fifty-eight, Mrs. 
Eddy’s Retrospection and Introspection, 1899. 

Her incautious retrospect lets the cat out of the bag. 
She closed her ‘ College’ because threatened with 
prosecution by the District Attorney in Boston. 

One cannot be an habitual prevaricator, and “ get 
away with it,” if one is very forgetful. 


No. 18: “I challenge the world to disprove what I 
hereby declare: After my discovery of Christian Science, 
I healed consumption in its last stages, that the M.D.’s, by 
verdict of the stethoscope and the schools, declared incur- 
able, the lungs being mostly consumed. I healed malig- 
nant tubercular diphtheria and carious bones that could be 
dented by the finger, saving them when the surgeon’s 
instruments were lying on the table ready for their ampu- 
tation. I have healed, at one visit, a cancer that had so 
eaten the flesh of the neck as to expose the jugular vein, 
so that it stood out like a cord.” 


This falsehood appeared in The New York Sun of 
December 16, 1898. In the humble opinion of the 
writer, no viler, wickeder, crueller lie was ever con- 
ceived or uttered. The disproof for which she calls, I 
give. She knew when she sent her challenge to The 
Sun, that ordinary disproof of her alleged cures was 
dependent upon more information than she imparted. 
If she had said: “On January first, 1890, at No. 8 
Broad Street, in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts, I 


250 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


healed at one visit a cancer that had so eaten into the 
neck of John Smith, who lived there, that the jugular 
vein stood out like a cord”—if she had given those 
details, it would be possible to meet them with the ordi- 
nary form of disproof. She didn’t give them because 
she couldn’t; and she couldn’t because she had never 
healed anyone of anything, never relieved anyone of 
anything—but dollars and sense. 

Dr. Charles A. L. Reed, of Cincinnati, was and is 
[1924] one of the most distinguished physicians in the 
country. The esteem in which he is held by his pro- 
fessional brethren is attested by his selection for the 
highest professional honour they could confer, the 
Presidency of the American Medical Association. Re- 
sponding to Mrs. Eddy’s challenge, making clear its 
bogus character, Dr. Reed, in The Sun of January 1, 
1899, said: 


“Mrs. Eddy comes into the arena with her character- 
istic bravado and challenges the world to prove a negative. 
She blissfully closes her eyes to the fact that she herself 
has not proved the position. On the contrary, her self- 
heralded wonders rest entirely upon her own unsupported 
declaration. . . . She should remember that even people 
who are not the victims of vagaries such as hers,—and 
whose every-day utterances do not toy with the eternal 
verities as do hers,—even such people are expected to 
bear the burden of proof when they seek to tax credulity. 
I therefore demand the proof of this high priestess; and 
that the issues may be clearly drawn, I shall take up a 
few of her declarations seriatium: 

“Mrs. Eddy says, ‘I healed consumption in its last 
stages, .. . the lungs being mostly consumed.’ 

“I denounce this declaration as false, and challenge its 
substantition by competent and disinterested testimony. 


LIES. 251 


“Mrs. Eddy says, ‘I healed carious bones that could be 
dented with the fingers.’ 

“I denounce this declaration as false, and challenge its 
substantiation by competent and disinterested testimony. 

“Mrs. Eddy says, ‘I have healed, at one visit, a cancer 
that had so eaten the flesh of the neck as to expose the 
jugular vein so that it stood out like a cord.’ 

“TI denounce this declaration as false and challenge its 
substantiation by competent and disinterested testimony. 

“Tf Mrs. Eddy has done all these wonders, she can do 
them again. If she is devoted to humanity in the altruistic 
fashion that she proclaims, she will not hesitate to demon- 
strate her alleged ‘science’ under circumstances that will . 
give it the widest possible influence. To this end, if she 
will come to Cincinnati, I will place at her disposal cases 
of consumption, cases of cancer, and cases of carious 
bones. She shall have them under observation for such 
time as she shall determine and she shall dictate all details 
of their management. They shall, however, be under the 
daily observation of a competent and disinterested person 
of my choice, but who shall have no voice in their manage- 
ment and who shall visit them only in her presence. 

“If she, by her Christian Science, shall cure any one of 
them, I shall proclaim her omnipotence from the house- 
tops; and, if she shall cure all, or even half, of them, I 
shall cheerfully crawl upon my hands and knees that I 
may but touch the hem of her walking-dress. If it may be 
more convenient to Mrs. Eddy and she is not disposed to 
honor us with a visit, I shall take pleasure in endeavour- 
ing through my friends to make a similar arrangement at 
Bellevue or some other New York hospital. If Mrs. Eddy 
will accept this challenge and cure one or more of the 
cases, she will thereby demonstrate that she may be some- 
thing more than either a conscienceless speculator on 
human credulity or an unfortunate victim of egotistic 
alienation. 


“ Cincinnati, Dec. 27, 1898. “ CHartes A. L. REED.” 


252 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


‘When the king of death shall come to earth, all 
knees will touch the ground.” If Christian Science 
were not completely fraudulent, if Mrs. Eddy had 
been sincere, she would have given some proof of 
the truth of her miraculous “ cures,” when asked by 
so eminent a man as Dr. Reed, would she not? If 
she had made the healings claimed, she could have 
repeated them; and to have repeated them, under 
the circumstances offered by Dr. Reed, would have 
been to have given evidence that she was the con- 
queror of death and have brought all the world, with 
Dr. Reed, to its knees at her feet. It was a wonder- 
ful opportunity for the professed miracle worker to 
prove her power. It afforded Mrs. Eddy an occa- 
sion for satisfying mankind, once and forever, that 
she was not a “conscienceless speculator on human 
credulity,” nor ‘an unfortunate victim of egoistic 
alienation’; but a human being with the attributes 
of God. 

Did Mrs. Eddy furnish any testimony of her alleged 
cures? Did she even give the name of any of the 
people she said she had healed? Did she show any dis- 
- position to avail herself of Dr. Reed’s offer to make a 
demonstration that would convince the world? She 
did none of these things. Silence possessed her, and 
silence was confession. Boldly challenging the world 
to disprove her unsupported and unbelievable asser- 
tions, the challenger hastily abandoned the field when 
challenged to produce proof that her statements were 
not wholly false. If a man makes assertions that 
rest upon his unsupported word and, when asked for 
proof, gives none, we believe him to be a liar, and don’t 
hesitate to call him a liar. Every word of Mrs. Eddy’s 
challenge was pure fiction, evolved from her inner con- 


LIES 253 


sciousness solely for the purpose of adding to the 
number of her dupes. 

If Mrs. Eddy ever loved anyone but Mrs. Eddy, her 
sister-in-law, Mary Ann Baker, was that one. I have 
read letters from the one to the other that show a real 
affection of Mrs. Eddy for Mrs. Baker. For years 
before her death, Mrs. Baker suffered frightfully from 
cancer of the breast. Did Mrs. Eddy put forth the 
slightest effort to mitigate that suffering, to save the 
life of one she loved? She recommended a Boston 
healer; nothing more, and Mary Ann Baker died of 
cancer. Isn’t that proof, mountains high, that Mrs. 
Eddy lied when she said she had healed a cancer at 
- one visit? If she could have healed her sister, and she 
didn’t, as the Registry of Deaths in Boston shows, 
what had Mrs. Eddy, harder than adamant, for a 
heart? | 


No. 19: “In 1866, I discovered the Science of Meta- 
physical Healing, and named it Christian Science. God 
had been graciously fitting me, during many years, for the 
reception of a final revelation of the absolute principle of 
Scientific Mind-healing.”—Science and Health, 1896, 


page 1. 


Throughout Mrs. Eddy’s book, a hundred times she 
affirms that mind is spirit and that mind healing is spir- 
itual healing. One quotation will suffice: “‘ If we would 
heal by the Spirit, we must not hide the talent of spirit- 
ual healing under the napkin of its form.” Page 366. 

On April 21, 1864, two years before her claimed dis- 
covery, she said: “‘ Posted at the public marts in this 
city is this notice: 

“Mrs. M. M. Patterson will lecture at the Town 


254 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Hall one week from next Wednesday on P. P. Quimby’s 
Spiritual Science Healing Disease.” 

Mrs. Eddy was at the time the wife of Patterson, her 
second husband, and called herself Mary M. Patterson. 
The statement quoted is in her handwriting and is con- 
clusive evidence that her claim to discovering the 
“Science ” of spiritual or metaphysical or mind healing 
is wholly false. 


No. 20: “I should blush to write of Sctence and Health 
with Key to the Scriptures as I have, were it of human 
origin and I, apart from God, its author.” 


If the nineteen falsehoods established do not prove 
the twentieth a conscious and deliberate fabrication, 
then no statement, however great a tax upon credulity, 
can be discredited by showing its author to be “ the 
most erratic, contradictory and untrustworthy witness 
that has occupied the stand since the days of the 
lamented Ananias.”’ 

The pretension upon which her “ religion ” is based 
is as false as her pretended claim to discovery of 
mental or spiritual healing. 

Baron Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Munchausen was 
an accomplished liar; but he did not pose as the apostle 
of Truth, nor profess to be an “‘ impersonation of the 
immaculate idea,” nor pretend to equality with Jesus. 
“I am as pure as the angels,” was not his declaration. 
Munchausen did not attempt to enhance the selling 
price of his literary wares by claiming God’s author- 
ship and that their perusal was life-saving. He did not 
toy with the eternal verities, life, death, immortality, 
God, with reckless disregard of human well-being. 

Mary Baker Eddy did all these things—and more; 


LIES 255 


so far as the writer can ascertain, Ananias, Mun- 
chausen and all the other world-famed and historic 
liars were bungling amateurs when compared with the 
one supreme artist, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer 
and Founder of Christian Science. She, alone, attained 
perfection, stands unapproached, unapproachable— 
alone! 


VI 
DEATH 


* The dream of death is to be mastered by mind.” 

“ Man is immortal and the body cannot die.’ 

“Any material evidence of death 1s false.” 

“ Man ss incapable of sin, sickness and death.” 

“ The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do 
with life.’ —Mary Baker Eppy. 


sie AN is incapable of death”; but Mary Baker 
M Eddy is dead! ‘“ Death is a dream”; but 
Mary Baker Eddy, in her concrete grave, 

has dreamed the dream of death these many years! 
“The lungs have nothing to do with life”; but the 
lungs of Mary Baker Eddy, closed to the admission of 
a single breath, strangled her as literally as would a 
hand that closed the windpipe at her throat! To be 
sure, the evidence of her death is sense evidence, which 
she declared to be always erroneous; but it is the only 
kind of evidence we have that she ever lived. “ In- 
capable of sickness, incapable of death,” her lungs 
having nothing to do with life—pneumonia killed her! 

If facts can negative assertions, the fact of Mrs. 
Eddy’s death falsifies Christian Science from beginning 
_ to end. 

Septimus J. Hanna is dead. During the years of 
Mrs. Eddy’s greatest activity, Hanna, next after her, 
was the leading Christian Scientist. As pastor of the 
Boston church and editor of The Christian Science 


256 


DEATH 257 


/ Journal, Hanna consistently proclaimed the unreality 
' of death and life’s independence of the bodily organs. 
_ In his open professions, lungs and bronchial tubes had 
_ nothing to do with life; but Hanna is dead. Broncho- 


. pneumonia, inflammation of the bronchial tubes and 


lungs, killed him. The complete healing of a bronchial 
- affection by Christian Science, he said, made him Mrs. 
__Eddy’s disciple. Then he died of it. As a “ religion,” 
Hanna made Christian Science pay him well; as a 
curative agent, it failed him in his utmost need. 

Archibald McLellan is dead. McLellan succeeded 
Hanna in Mrs. Eddy’s favour. She made him editor 
of her periodicals, chairman of her Board of Directors 
and trustee of her estate. He made her teaching his 
gospel and expounded it and lauded her without ceas- 
ing. In many ways and on many occasions he affirmed 
its therapeutic infallibility. In The Christian Science 
Journal for July, 1916, Editor McLellan said: ‘‘ When 
one whose life has been shadowed by intense physical 
suffering is led to investigate Christian Science, often- 
times through study of the text-book alone, peace of 
mind is assured; and, when this has been gained, there 
is not the slightest doubt that complete physical healing 
will follow.” 

McLellan had not only studied the text-book, he 
knew it almost by heart; and he had the very excep- 
tional advantage of daily intercourse with its author. 
If one’s countenance is an index to one’s mind, McLel- 
lan had attained the peace of mind of which he speaks; 
for his countenance, even upon the streets, bore an 
expression of ineffable calm. But at the precise mo- 
ment when McLellan wrote that there was not the 
slightest doubt complete physical healing would follow 
such peace of mind, McLellan was doomed. The 


258 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


blood and the brain have nothing to do with life; but 
a drop or two of blood escaped from McLellan’s arter- 
ies to his brain, and the thing we call life ended. The 
arteries had hardened, the blood passages through 
them contracted and the consequent increase of blood- 
pressure burst an artery in the brain, and McLellan 
died. Arterio-sclerosis—hardening of the arteries— 
killed him, in the prime of life and when he was most 
useful to his ‘‘ Leader.” 

Alfred Farlow is dead. Through his chairmanship 
of the Christian Science Committee on Publication, and 
his official pronouncement in the press all over the 
country, Farlow was, perhaps, more in the public eye 
for some years, than Mrs. Eddy herself. His job was 
to deny everything harmful and affirm everything he 
deemed helpful to Mrs. Eddy and her teachings. 
Again and again and again he declared no extremity of 
physical disorder beyond the power of Christian 
Science treatment. He was a Christian Science 
“healer” as well as teacher. Taught by Mrs. Eddy 
herself that heart, blood, lungs and brain had nothing 
to do with life, he insisted it was so; but Farlow’s 
heart stopped beating and Farlow died. According to 
the official record, valvular disease of the heart killed 
Farlow. Like McLellan he, too, died in his prime, 
fifty-eight years of age. On a public occasion, I heard 
Farlow say that he knew of leprosy having been cured 
by Christian Science treatment; but Alfred Farlow’s 
heart-disease it did not, could not, cure. 

Edward_E. Kimball is dead. Virgil A. Strickler is 
dead. Joseph Armstrong is dead. William B. Johnson 
is dead. Each, in life, stood at Mrs. Eddy’s right hand. 
They “healed” and taught. Receiving the gospel 
straight from the fountain-head, they professed to 


DEATH 259 


believe and they taught that “ the dream of death is to 
be mastered by mind,” that ‘the body cannot die,” 
that “ blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to 
do with life.” And they are dead. A diseased con- 
dition of one or another of the bodily organs killed 
them. 

Let us get a little closer to Mrs. Eddy. There was 
death amongst the members of her household; but, 
when warned in time, she did not permit it to occur on 
her premises. She sent the dying to die where the fact 
would not so much discredit her pretensions. 

Mrs. Parmalee J. Leonard lived with Mrs. Eddy for 
a number of years. She had been a healer of renown, 
until Mrs. Eddy summoned her to Concord. Little 
short of miracles were the “ cures” she effected. She 
“knew ” that disease does not exist and that such 
“ knowledge ” cured sickness of every description. 
She “‘ knew ” she did not have diabetes; but she could 
not persuade herself that she was not always hungry 
and always thirsty and constantly losing what a ma- 
terial world calls “ flesh.” Right under Mrs. Eddy’s 
eyes, in close daily contact with the “ founder” of a 
cure-all mental healing system, diabetes took its course 
*with Mrs. Leonard. Mrs. Eddy ignored the constantly 
-aggravated symptoms; put forth no effort to save her 
- devoted friend and servant. Claiming the power to 
heal and to have healed consumption when “ the lungs 
were mostly consumed,” and, “ at one visit, a cancer 
that had so eaten into the neck as to expose the jugular 
vein so that it stood out like a cord,” she put forth no 
power, mental or other, to cure her adorer. When Mrs. 
Eddy’s discerning eye judged Mrs. Leonard’s death to 
be imminent, she sent the woman away, to die else- 
where; and diabetes killed Mrs. Leonard, 


260 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


But, on another of his visits, the Reaper got ahead 
of the ‘“‘ Revelator,” and neglected to give the necessary 
warning such as would enable Mrs. Eddy to bundle the 
dying person off to die somewhere else than under her 
roof. Her coachman, having in his ignorance suffered 
from a belief of heart disease, changed his belief, de- 
nied himself capable of heart disease, cured himself 
by ‘knowing that sickness does not exist.” The 
“cure” converted him to Christian Science. Instantly 
“cured ” of his disease, he, as instantly, died of it in 
Mrs. Eddy’s house at Concord, New Hampshire. 

The most, socially, prominent person that ever 
avowed himself a Christian Scientist was the Earl of 
Dunmore. He was Mrs. Eddy’s dearest conquest, and 
was exploited unceasingly. He visited her at Concord 
and correspondence between them edified the faithful 
from the columns of the Christian Science periodicals. 
The earl had nothing to gain by becoming a Christian 
Scientist and was undoubtedly sincere. He believed he 
had been healed by its treatment, honestly believed 
that he owed his life to Mrs. Eddy’s teachings; but he 
was mistaken. In The Cosmopolitan Magazine for 
March, 1907, the Earl of Dunmore said that his con- 
version to Christian Science was due to the complete 
cure of a disease that eminent London physicians had 
pronounced incurable. But in the following August 
_ he gave the most conclusive evidence possible that he 

was pitifully mistaken. He died of it! His belief that 
he was incapable of heart disease and, consequently, 
couldn’t have the disease pronounced fatal by his phy- 
sicians, converted him to Christian Science; then fatty 
degeneration of the heart killed him. 

Hundreds of such cases might be cited; but one or 
two more shall suffice. 


DEATH 261 


John S..Hawley was my friend. He was honest and 
gentle and lovable, and I honoured and loved him. For 
many years he was afflicted by a chronic disease of the 
kidneys. Medicine pronounced his case hopeless. Mr. 
Hawley did not want to die. He was much beloved 
and life to him was precious. As a drowning man 
clutches at a straw, Mr. Hawley clutched at Christian 
Science. He was told that many cases of Bright’s 
disease, that medical men had declared incurable, had 
been completely cured by “ Science,” and that, more- 
over, if he would surrender himself wholly to Mrs. 
Eddy’s teachings and take her treatment “ there was 
not the slightest doubt that complete physical healing 
would follow.”’ A successful business man, Mr. Haw- 
ley was not a critical thinker. He did not believe men 
and women would lie as Mrs. Eddy’s “ healers ”’ lied. 
He wanted to believe what he was told, and compelled 
himself to believe it, actually did believe it. Then 
came his ‘“ cure,” and so overflowing with gratitude 
was he that he gave the Christian Scientists of San 
Diego twenty-five thousand dollars to help them build 
their church. Then this honest, trustful gentleman 
died of his kidney disease. Chronic interstitial ne- 
phritis, according to the official record, killed him. 

Adam.H..Dickey is dead! At the time of his death, 
Feb. 5, 1925, Dickey was Chairman of the Christian 
Science Board of Directors and ruler in chief over 
Christian-Sciencedom. He “ knew ” the infallibility of 
Christian Science treatment; ‘“‘ knew ” the unreality of 
disease and death; “‘ knew ” the heart and the kidneys 
and the arteries had nothing to do with life; yet 
“chronic endocarditis, chronic nephritis and general 
arterio-sclerosis,”’ that is to say, a disease of the heart 
and a disease of the kidneys and a disease of the arter- 


262 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


ies, of long standing, killed Dickey. One of these dis- 
eases, In chronic form, will, sooner or later, cause 
death; but the most prominent, most influential, most 
powerful, most convinced of contemporary Christian 
Scientists died, as certified by the Medical Examiner, 
of all three. 

“The heart, blood, lungs, brain, have nothing to do 
with life,” and “the sick are not cured by declaring 
that there is no sickness, but by knowing that there is 
none,” and “man is incapable of death,” Mrs. Eddy 
said. Yet Mrs. Eddy and Hanna and McLellan and 
Farlow and Kimball and Strickler and Armstrong and 
Johnson and Mrs. Leonard and the Earl of Dunmore 
and Adam H. Dickey and John S. Hawley and thou- 
sands of other Christian Scientists, accepting Mrs. 
Eddy’s teaching have sickened and died. 

If these things do not shake the faith of Mrs. Eddy’s 
dupes in her “religion ” and her infallible healing sys- 
tem, then all the world, and God, cannot convince such 
people that they are a snare and a delusion, a lie and 
a sham. 

Let it never be forgotten that to many thousands 
Christian Science has meant the tragedy of needless 
suffering and premature death; and, when helpless 
children have been similarly victimised, the crime is 
one that calls for retribution, swift and sure. 


Vil 
CASH 


“ Fleal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast 
out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.” 
| —Jksus CuRIst. 


“Christian Science demonstrates that the patient who 
pays whatever he 1s able to pay for healing is more apt to 
recover than he who withholds the slight equivalent for 
health.’—Mary B. Eppy. 


in Boston are embellished with parallel passages 

from the teachings of Jesus and the writings of 
Mrs. Eddy, of equal authority with the faithful; but 
search will not discover the words of Jesus quoted 
above. The only person who received Christian 
Science freely was Mrs. Eddy; nobody ever got it from 
her except for cash. Hence her constant exhortation 
that those who had paid dearly for it should contrive 
to sell the “divine power that heals”; and Mrs. 
Eddy’s assurance that Christian Science demonstrates 
the curative power of prompt payment of bills has been 
highly useful to her “ healers.” 

From the first to last Christian Science, with Mrs. 
Eddy, was a business, a money-making enterprise and 
nothing more. She took it up because it promised cash 
in hand, when cash was sorely needed; she kept at it 
because it yielded cash far beyond her wildest expecta- 
tion. At the start, when upwards of sixty years of age, 


263 


A dirs walls of the great Christian Science church 


264 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


she hadn’t a dollar; upon her death the official apprais- 
ers of her estate estimated its value at three million dol- 
_ Jars. There wasn’t an honest dollar in the three million. 
- ‘The taint of fraud and false pretence was over it all. 
The business character of Mrs. Eddy’s Christian 
Science has been judicially declared. When applica- 
tion was made to him for a Christian Science church 
charter, Judge Arnold, of the Court of Common Pleas 
of Philadelphia, denied the application on the stated 
ground that Christian Science was a business, and not a 
religion; and, on appeal, the Supreme Court of Penn- 
sylvania sustained his finding and denounced the teach- 
ings of Christian Science as contrary to public policy. 

That Mrs. Eddy was the victim of certain delusions 
there isn’t the shadow of a doubt; but it is equally 
certain that, in matters of business, she was extraor- 
dinarily level-headed. Unhampered by scruples of any 
kind she went to her mark as straight as a bullet to the 
bull’s-eye. Early in her career, realising the exceeding 
ease with which average human beings, untrained in 
thinking, are fooled along religious and medical lines, 
she deliberately proceeded to fool them to the top of 
their bent. Mrs. Eddy was a veritable female P. T. 
Barnum. Self-styled the “ Prince of Humbugs,” Bar- 
num created a show which appealed to the credulous, 
to those who delighted in fakers and freaks; the 
“High Priestess of Humbugs,”’—Mary Eddy’s—show 
appealed to the gullible without faith in religion and 
without hope of cure of ills of which they suffered, to 
those who dearly love to believe in the absolute truth 
of the utterly meaningless, who are constantly on the 
lookout for the absurdity that will the most tax their 
powers of belief, who mistake boldness for veracity and 
cunning for candour. 


CASH 265 


There are many points of similarity between the 
male and female Barnum, but there are differences. 
The man made humbuggery a business because both he 
and the humbugged enjoyed it; but he gave them 
something for their money. The woman made hum- 
buggery a business, but the humbugged got nothing for 
what she extorted. He converted American credulity 
into American coin, astounded, amused, provoked to 
laughter; but he adversely affected no person’s health 
or happiness. She made her millions out of the human 
love of being fooled; but she broke up homes, ruined 
lives and dotted the country with needless graves. He 
misrepresented and lied and cheated, but he laid hand 
on no sacred thing. She misrepresented and lied and 
cheated, and nothing was too sacred for her sacri- 
legious touch, nothing so pitiful that she abstained 
from meddling with it if it promised a dollar. Religion 
was her business, God her stock-in-trade. Barnum 
with his circus and Eddy with her religio-medical mas- 
querade had one aim—the very last cent their re- 
spective shows could be made to yield. 

If anyone doubts this, let him read what follows, and 
investigate for himself. Then let him hit: the damned 
thing known as Christian Science every time he gets 
a chance. 

My esteemed collaborator, Dr. Riley, has clearly 
shown that Mrs. Eddy, in large part, appropriated a 
system of mental healing from Phineas P. Quimby, 
which, after his death, in 1866, she claimed to have 
discovered by revelation from God, and that she from 
time to time supplemented it with odds and ends of 
more or less harmonious thought wherever she found 
it. At first she professed it to be a healing system and 
nothing more, and expressly objected to its being 


266 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


called a religion; but, at a later date, having discov- 
ered the commercial value of the religious idea, she 
proclaimed it the final and absolute religion. 

Mrs. Eddy never attempted to heal, never undertook 
to demonstrate the efficacy of her system by, herself, 
treating and curing disease. She taught. Teaching 
war far safer than treating. It was not subject to 
discredit by failure. Wise in her day and generation, 
Mrs. Eddy took no such chance. A failure by another 
did not, necessarily, discredit Mrs. Eddy or her system. 
Want of understanding accounted for it, an insuffic- 
iency of faith. Of course Mrs. Eddy said she had 
cured, made the most extravagant boasts of healings 
effected. She never told the name of a person she 
pretended to have cured. Her alleged healings were 
the boldest, most infamous falsehoods. I am not ex- 
pressing an opinion. I am stating a fact. She simply 
taught, but, heavens, what profitable teaching! 

For a short period, at the beginning of her teaching 
career, Mrs. Eddy advertised that she would not ask 
for pay unless skill in healing resulted; but there was 
no money in such a method and it was almost immedi- 
ately abandoned and a scheme of advance payments 
adopted. The guarantee vanished forever and stu- 
dents were required to sign a contract to pay a hundred 
dollars in advance, ten per cent. of their earnings from 
the practice of Christian Science and the substantial 
sum of a thousand dollars if they didn’t earn anything 
by its use. We have very conclusive evidence of the 
terms of this contract. Several suits were brought by 
the teacher against the taught for its enforcement. 
The following is a duly certified transcript of her 
contract as set forth in her complaint in one of 
these suits: 


CASH 267 


“ COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 


“ E’ssex, ss. In Equity. 
“Mary B. Eddy, Plaintiff, 
WES 
“ Daniel H. Spofford, Defendant. 


“ Bill of Complaint. 

“Aug. 17, 1870. We, the undersigned, do hereby agree 
in consideration of instruction and manuscript received 
from Mrs. Mary B. Glover to pay her one hundred dol- 
lars in advance and ten per cent annually on the income 
that we receive from practicing or teaching the same. We 
also do hereby agree to pay the said Mary B. Glover one 
thousand dollars in case we do not practice or teach the 
science she has taught us. 

“D. A. SPOFFORD, 
“M. A. SPOFFORD, 
“The foregoing is a true copy. 
“ Attest: Ezra L. Woopsury, 
“ [Seal of Court] Ass’t Clerk.” 


A word of explanation of the diversity of names. 
The founder of Christian Science was born Baker, 
married a Glover and a Patterson and an Eddy. When 
this contract was made, in 1870, she was the wife of 
Patterson; hence was named Patterson. She had 
ceased to regard Mr. Patterson with favour, so called 
herself by the name of his predecessor, Glover. Be- 
tween the making of the contract and the bringing of 
the suit Mrs. Patterson, called Glover, had divorced 
Patterson and married Eddy. I hope these facts are 
here made plain. 

Since contracts were made between men, did inge- 
nuity ever evolve another like Mrs. Eddy’s? By its 
terms she got a hundred dollars at the start. So much 
was secure. To induce the Spoffords to practice or 
teach and have an income that would yield her some- 


268 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


thing, she imposed a penalty of a thousand dollars if 
they did not. They practiced and taught, so did not 
render themselves liable to the penalty, but balked at 
the ten per cent. of their income. They even had the 
temerity to refuse to disclose its amount. Mrs. Eddy, 
thereupon, dragged them into court to compel them to 
disclose the amount of their earnings and disgorge 
her share. 

Jesus and Mrs. Eddy are equally revered by Chris- 

tian Scientists; but their methods, it appears, were 
dissimilar. 
“ The Spofford suit was never tried and disposed of 
upon its merits; but in another suit by Mrs. Eddy, 
upon a precisely similar contract, against George Tut- 
tle and Charles Stanley, Judge Choate, who heard all 
the witnesses, including Mrs. Eddy, decided that the 
contract was invalid because the consideration given 
by Mrs. Eddy was without value. The system of heal- 
ing, as explained by her, was, he declared, unintelligible 
and worthless, and Tuttle and Stanley could not be 
compelled to pay something for nothing. 

This failure to prove value in her system discour- 
aged the bringing of more suits upon her unique con- 
tract, and doubtless led, in later years, to the by-law, 
made by Mrs. Eddy for her Mother Church in Boston, 
prohibiting an appeal to the courts to recover the value 
of Christian Science treatment. One decision assert- 
ing it to be valueless was enough. It was plain that 
methods must be changed, and nothing whatever left 
for courts to pass upon. Mrs. Eddy was equal to the 
emergency. Cash in advance was the idea, enough 
cash to fully compensate the great teacher for teaching 
her precious Christian Science, and every cent of it 
“strictly in advance.” 


CASH 269 


I have elsewhere shown that Mrs. Eddy was com- 
pletely destitute of education. She knew nothing of 
literature, science, art, philosophy, metaphysics, his- 
tory or any other branch of learning—nothing what- 
ever. She knew nothing; but she had colossal nerve. 
As “nothing is more audacious than ignorance,” so no 
ignoramus was. ever more audacious than that now 
under consideration. Without the slightest acquaint- 
ance with things collegiate, Mrs. Eddy established a 
“ college ” and made herself its president. The faculty 
consisted, beside herself, of her third husband and her 
adopted son. 

I may remark, in passing, that Eddy (a sewing- 
machine agent, when he made Mrs. Patterson’s ac- 
quaintance), who called himself doctor, had the same 
right to “Dr.” before his name that his wife had to 
the ‘‘ Rev.” before hers: they reached out, took them, 
and put them there. 

The complete course of instruction in Mrs. Eddy’s 
remarkable institution of learning consisted of thirty 
lessons or lectures which could have been given in ten 
days. ‘The tuition charge was eight hundred dollars, 
eighty dollars a day; and not a syllable of tuition was 
imparted until the president of the “ college” had full 
payment in hand. 

That the character of the Eddy establishment may 
not rest upon my assertion and that it may not be lost 
to history I rescue its prospectus, prepared by its 
president and published in the September, 1886, num- 
ber of her Christian Science Journal and give it here 
in full: 

“ MASSACHUSETTS METAPHYSICAL COLLEGE 
“ Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, President, 
“571 Columbus Ave., Boston, Mass. 


270 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


“This institution, chartered by the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts in 1881, receives both male and female 
students. 

“Tt gives ample instruction in every scientific method 
of medicine. 

“It meets the demand of the age for something higher 
than physic or drugging to restore to the race hope and 
health. 

“Mental healing is taught on a purely practical basis, 
to aid the development of human mind, and to impart a 
thorough understanding of the divine power and presence 
to promote and restore health. 

“The collegiate course in Christian Science, metaphys- 
ical healing, includes twelve lessons. Class convenes at 
10 a. M. First week, six consecutive lessons. ‘Term con- 
tinues about three weeks. ‘Tuition, $300. 

“Course in metaphysical obstetrics includes six daily 
lectures, and is open to students from this college. 
Tuition, $100. 

“Class in theology, open (like the above) to graduates, 
receives six additional lessons on the Scriptures, and 
summary of the principles and practice of Christian 
Science. $200. 

“Normal class is open to those who have taken the first 
course at this college. Six daily lectures complete the 
normal course. Tuition, $200. It is advisable to practice 
at least one year before entering the above class. 

“Those sending their names in due season will receive 
timely notice of the commencement of classes. No 
invalids, and only persons of good moral character are 
accepted as students. All students are subject to exami- 
nation and rejection ; and they are liable to leave the class, 
if found unfit to remain in it. 

“A few students can be accommodated with rooms and 
board at the college. Reasonable board can be obtained in 
the vicinity of the college. A limited number of clergy- 
men received free of charge. Largest discount to indi- 


CASH 271 


gent students, $100 on the first course; no deduction on 
the others. Husband and wife entered together for $300. 
“Tuition for all strictly in advance. 
“N. B. No consultations on disease outside of the 
class.” 


The Christian Science campaign of suppression shall 
not suppress this prospectus. First published in 1886, 
I make it public again in 1925. Standing alone it is a 
thousand times more than enough to put the stamp of 
charlatanry upon Mrs. Eddy and all her works. Hope- 
less is the mind that, contemplating Mrs. Eddy’s 
“metaphysical college,” persists in regarding her the 
God-elected successor to Jesus. Far easier is it to 
believe in the green-cheese consistency of the moon. 

A word or two of comment upon this Eddy get-rich- 
quick scheme: 

While the “ college ” purported to give “ lectures ” 
on various aspects of Christian Science, there was really 
nothing new, nothing more than Mrs. Eddy had given 
Spofford, Tuttle, Stanley and the others under the 
original contract. The only departure from the earlier 
plan was in the rates and the insistence upon payment 
of the full amount in advance. The charge advanced 
from one hundred dollars to three hundred dollars, and 
nothing was left to the good faith of the student, 
nothing to court enforcement. ‘“‘ The collegiate course 
in Christian Science, metaphysical healing” by the 
“‘ Rev.” President was the whole show. “ Dr.” Eddy, 
the husband, and Dr. Foster-Eddy, the adopted son, 
not professing divine inspiration, failed to hold the 
interest of seekers after truth—at the price. Few at- 
tended their lectures and they shortly disappeared from 
the curriculum. ‘ The immaculate impersonation of 


272 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


the spiritual idea,’ herself, alone commanded the price 
of admission. All gladly paid twenty-five dollars for 
each of her twelve discources and deemed them cheap. 
When [ say all, I mean all of four thousand. 

The three-hundred-for-twelve rate was a divine in- 
spiration. God told Mrs. Eddy what to say and God 
told her what to charge for saying it. She admits it. 
Personally, she thought the charge too high and shrank 
from asking it, but God insisted and Mrs. Eddy, so 
conciliatory was her disposition, yielded. I am not 
speaking of my own knowledge, of course. I am taking 
Mrs. Eddy’s word for it. ‘‘ When God impelled me to 
set a price on Christian Science mind healing,” she 
said, “‘ I could think of no financial equivalent for the 
impartation of a knowledge of that divine power that 
heals; but I was led to name three hundred dollars as 
the price for each pupil in one course of lessons at my 
college; a startling sum for tuition lasting barely three 
weeks. This amount greatly troubled me. I shrank 
from asking it, but was finally led by a strange Provi- 
dence to accept this fee. God has since shown me in 
multitudinous ways the wisdom of this decision.” 

So that’s that. God did it. Mrs. Eddy was startled, 
amazed! One hundred dollars had been her own valu- 
ation, and when God raised it to three hundred her soul 
was greatly troubled within her. She argued with God. 
She retreated and fled from his proposal; but God 
overtook and overcame her. Mrs. Eddy, poor woman, 
succumbed. [I entertain a suspicion that she reached 
out both hands and—grabbed! 

After realising the wisdom of obedience to God’s 
command, Mrs. Eddy considered if it were not possible 
to advance the rates fixed by God. She had found the 
three-hundred-for-twelve extremely easy, not only to 


CASH 273 


charge, but to collect, so, without taking counsel with 
God, without any perturbation of spirit, without 
shrinking or.evasion, she boldly raised her charge 
nearly a hundred per cent. God had no responsibility 
for that. From twenty-five dollars per lesson she in- 
creased the charge to forty-two dollars. That is to say, 
she reduced the course to seven lessons without any 
reduction in the charge. Three hundred dollars for 
seven lessons was the new charge. Three-hundred-for- 
twelve had been the charge for the “ collegiate course.” 
Three-hundred-for-seven was the charge for the “‘ pri- 
mary ” course. Down from collegiate to primary and 
up from twenty-five to forty-two; but collegiate and 
primary were identical, precisely the same thing she 
had sold to Spofford at eight-thirty-three per lesson. 

As I am anxious that my word alone should not be 
taken for these monstrous things, I quote Mrs. Eddy 
in support thereof: 


“ Having reached a place in teaching,” she said, “ where 
my students in Christian Science are taught more during 
seven lessons in the primary class than they were formerly 
in twelve, and taught all that is profitable at one time, 
hereafter the primary class shall include seven lessons 
only. As this number of lessons is of more value than 
twice this number in times past, no change is made in the 
price of tuition, three hundred dollars. 


“ Mary BAKER G, Eppy.” 


This announcement was published in The Christian 
Science Journal of December, 1888. 

In 1886, Mrs. Eddy said God had fixed the charge 
at three hundred dollars, twenty-five dollars per lesson. 
In 1888, affirming the value of seven lessons to be twice 


274 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


as valuable as before, she boosted the charge to forty- 
two dollars per lesson. There is another view of the 
matter. If her revelation was worth only half as much 
in 1886, when she charged twenty-five dollars for one- 
twelfth of it, as it was in 1888, when the price for one- 
seventh was forty-two dollars, what was its actual value 
in 1870, when it cost Spofford only eight dollars and 
thirty-three and a third cents per lesson? The divine 
word reached Mrs. Eddy, as she said, in 1866. When 
it was new and fresh its value was less than a fifth of 
her valuation of it when it had somewhat staled 
with age. 

It is clear that Mrs. Eddy’s character underwent a 
transformation between the years 1886 and 1888. In 
the year first named she was a modest, shrinking violet: 
in the latter, she had the audacity to set her judgment 
_ above God’s. 

I have intimated that four thousand people paid the 
Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy this extortionate charge for 
“ instruction ’’ which the Supreme Court of Massa- 
chusetts, after hearing her explanation under oath, had 
declared to be valueless. I know nothing about it my- 
self, and am again compelled to take her word for it. 
She said so, and I believe her. It is an established rule 
of law that testimony of the most disreputable person 
may be taken as true, if contrary to the interest of the 
witness. The gouging of four thousand trustful people 
out of three hundred dollars each for a thing of no 
value is so discreditable a performance that I accept 
Mrs. Eddy’s statement that she did it. 

‘‘ During seven years,” in the preface to the 1898 
edition of Science and Health, she said, “some four 
thousand students were taught by the author in this 
college.” 


CASH 275 


Four thousand times three hundred is one million 
two hundred thousand—an annual income of a hundred 
and seventy thousand dollars. But that is not quite 
accurate, and I want to be entirely fair. Husband and 
wife, for the purposes of tuition, were considered one. 
Three hundred dollars paid for both. Few husbands 
attended the “ lectures ” with their wives; but to give 
her the benefit of the uncertainty, let us knock off the 
two hundred thousand. If she tells the truth, every 
dollar of the round million, she got. But, it will be 
said, there were “indigent students,” who got a dis- 
count of a hundred dollars. True; but every one of 
the indigents subsequently paid in full. Speaking of 
them in The Christian Science Journal of April, 1898, 
she said: 3 


“ Afterwards, with touching tenderness, those very stu- 
dents sent me the full tuition money. However, I re- 
turned this money with love, but it was again mailed to me 
in letters begging me to accept it, saying, “ Your teachings 
are worth much more to me than money can be.’ ” 


I can see that money going back to the tender stu- 
dents, with love! I can almost hear Mrs. Eddy ex- 
claim: ‘‘ Bless my soul and body! One would think I 
am in this revelation business for what there is in it 
for me.” And, in an aside to the ever-attentive Frye: 
—‘ Calvin, get this money in the bank just as soon as 
God’ll let you.” So nothing should be deducted for the 
indigent ones, and the income, from teaching at the 
“ college,” remains, a million dollars. 

So much for teaching, ‘for an impartation of a 
knowledge of that divine power that heals.” 

Much money has been made by the writers of books 


276 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


and by the publishers of books; but in every instance, — 
save Mrs. Eddy’s, they had in them something of learn- 
ing or imagination or humour. Mrs. Eddy wrote a 
book. Yes, in its original form, it was her work. 
Mark Twain took the trouble to compare the original 
edition with the book in its final form and said Mrs. 
Eddy was “a shameless old swindler ” for claiming 
authorship of both. Science and Health has, almost 
from its first publication, in 1875, been a three-dollar 
book, and has had an enormous sale. 

In 1889, Mrs. Eddy closed her “ college.”” The rea- 
son for shutting up the famous institution was best 
known to its President and the District Attorney of 
Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The reason given is 
contained in the announcement in The Christian 
Science Journal of September, 1889, elsewhere quoted 
in full. 

That’s the idea. There was too much money in it. 
Applications for the primary course of seven lessons 
that would have yielded forty-eight thousand dollars 
were on her desk, so she closed her .“ college.” So 
many people flocked to her class-room that she couldn’t 
do her best work and she would give nothing but her 
very best. So there was no alternative but to put aside 
forty-eight thousand dollars, and turn away all appli- 
cants. How Mrs. Eddy had changed since the days 
when she was crowding poor Spofford in the courts to 
wring out of him her ten per cent. of his income! The 
alternative of accommodating all applicants by taking 
as many at a time as she could give her best work to, 
say, a quarter of them, does not appear to have sug- 
gested itself. Forty-eight thousand dollars was within 
the reach of the woman who, to my certain knowledge, 
made one of her students mortgage her home to secure 


CASH 277 


payment of the three hundred dollars tuition charge, 
and forty-eight thousand more would be clamouring 
for acceptance as soon as the pending applications had 
been disposed of; so there was nothing to do but shut 
up shop. Thus ended Mrs. Eddy’s teaching career. A 
less labourious and more profitable field attracted her. 
She was not looking for trouble with the prosecuting 
attorney’s office, so up went the shutters on the Massa- 
chusetts Metaphysical College! 

A book may be a gold mine—a Bonanza. Mrs. Eddy 
had just such a book. There was never any other book 
like it. It contained a revelation and its perusal 
hedled all manner of disease. By copyrighting the 
book, Mrs. Eddy secured a complete monopoly of the 
revelation and the book’s healing properties. Nobody 
could have the revelation from God, nobody could read 
and be healed without paying Mrs. Eddy for it. The 
ownership of such a property is the ownership of the 
most valuable thing on earth, the thing that people will 
most gladly give money to possess. That’s the kind of 
book Mrs. Eddy owned the copyright of. She said so, 
and many hundreds of thousands of dollars, in conse- 
quence, streamed into her coffers from a multitude of 
believers. 

I make its “author”? my witness. I ask her, Did 
you write Science and Health? And she answers, “TI 
should blush to write of Science and Health as I have 
were it of human origin and I, apart from God, its 
author.” How about its curative properties? And the 
witness responds, ‘‘ The perusal of the author’s publi- 
cations heals sickness.” 

For the former response, see The Christian Science 
Journal, January, 1901; for the latter, Science and 
Health, 1898, page 443. 


cc 


278 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Possession of such a property is one thing; to make 
others believe it to be such a property is another mat- 
ter. Its price was not less than three dollars, and Mrs. 
Eddy’s royalty not less than a dollar a book. Sale for 
a number of years after its publication, in 1875, was 
slow, exceedingly slow. No reputable publisher wanted 
it, and the first edition was printed at the expense of 
friends, who sank twenty-two hundred dollars in it. 
Mrs. Eddy risked nothing, presumably had nothing to 
risk. There was no money for the ordinary kinds of 
advertising, no means of creating a demand. The cost 
of printing and binding was not recovered from sales. 
The retail price started at two dollars and a half, but 
the book went begging at a dollar. Mrs. Eddy ped- 
died it herself and her friends disposed of it as they 
were able, but it was a drug on the market. With 
the establishment of The Christian Science Journal, 
however, an advertising agency came into existence, 
but its small circulation was limited to converts who 
had bought it when they took their lessons from 
Mrs. Eddy. 

Abandonment of the “college” (which meant 
nothing more than stopping teaching, her residence fur- 
nishing the seat of the “ college”) with its large in- 
come, put Mrs. Eddy upon inquiry for ways and means 
of maintaining and augmenting her resources. At this 
precise moment, the great idea dawned, whether by 
revelation or otherwise, deponent saith not. Then dis- 
covered she the philosopher’s stone which, in her hands, 
was to transmute heaps of worthless paper into heaps 
of solid gold. 

Ownership of a religion and ownership of a church 
organisation and ownership of the personnel of the 
organisation, its officers and members constitutes not 


CASH 279 


only a ready market but a marvellous selling agency 
for a book containing a revelation from God. Like- 
wise some thousands of “ healers,’’ compelled to be 
members of the church and subject to its discipline, 
can be utilised to immense benefit in the sale not only 
of a book dictated by God, but one the mere perusal of 
which heals disease. I give Mrs. Eddy undivided 
credit for that unique and profitable discovery. 

Germinating in the fertile brain of the “ founder and 
discoverer of Christian Science,” the idea rapidly took 
complete possession of her and from the “ closing ” of 
her “ college,” in August, 1889, until the end of her 
days, her every energy was devoted to its development. 
Immediately, in August, 1889, and coincident with the 
closing of the ‘‘ college,” she foreclosed, fraudulently, 
as I have shown, the mortgage given by her Boston 
friends on the property they had bought there to build 
a Christian Science church upon, and acquired it for 
less than a quarter of its value. To have taken title 
herself at once would have been to disclose her hand, 
so it was juggled back and forth to and between sev- 
eral intermediaries before it reached her. When she 
finally had the title in her own name, she conveyed it to 
trustees for the building of a church of her own, her 
very own. The church was built; and a more costly 
structure succeeded it. From its inception to the end 
of Mrs. Eddy’s life she made every rule for its manage- 
ment, she autocratically controlled its organisation; its 
officers and members were her vassals and slaves. Her 
control was despotic; their slavery, abject. 

“Tt is said I make many mistakes about Christian 
Science,” said Mark Twain, “ through being ignorant 
of the spiritual meaning of its terminology. I believe 
itis true. I have been misled all this time by the word 


280 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


‘member,’ because there was no one to tell me that its 
spiritual meaning was ‘ slave.’ ” 

Obedience was required of all, unquestioning, 
prompt. “ Experience and, above all, obedience, are 
the tests of growth and understanding in Science,” 
wrote Mrs. Eddy to her followers through her organ, 
the Journal. 

Slow in getting under way, the church grew and 
flourished like the far-famed bay-tree. Its member- 
ship mounted by leaps and bounds. Within ten years 
it numbered upwards of twenty thousand. It was de- 
nominated the Mother Church and all Christian Scien- 
tists everywhere were urged and expected to enroll. 
Mrs. Eddy asked them to, and her spokesman said her 
request was God’s. Familiarity with Mrs. Eddy’s 
great book, Science and Health, three dollars a copy, 
was a requisite of membership. ‘“ Reading Rooms ” 
opened all over the country, and all healers and teach- 
ers, thousands of them, were required to buy in quan- 
tities and keep the book on sale. Local churches and 
societies and all healers and teachers were required to 
advertise in The Christian Science Journal, and all 
advertisers must be members of the Mother Church. 
Exclusion of advertising automatically excluded the 
excluded advertiser from the church and from repu- 
table standing in the cult. The ordinary publisher 
allows a discount to wholesale buyers of from twenty- 
five to forty or fifty per cent. Wholesale buyers of 
Eddy literature were allowed less than ten per cent. 

In 1897, when her church membership was twenty 
thousand and more, came Mrs. Eddy’s master-stroke, 
the most audacious, most brazen performance of her 
selfish and shameless life. The demand for her writ- 
ings was large and the profits immense; but her greed 


CASH 5 281. 


was insatiable. Trained in obedience to the will of 
God as voiced by Mrs. Eddy in her every utterance, the 
members waited only an expression of her wish to get 
busy in her service. 

Gathering together her random editorial and other 
utterances in The Christian Science Journal from its 
first publication, in 1883, Mrs. Eddy republished them 
in a book entitled Miscellaneous Writings. It con- 
tained nothing new; but so easy had it been found to 
sell one book profitably that Mrs. Eddy knew there 
would be no difficulty in adding to her income by pub- 
lishing another, even if it were nothing but an inco- 
herent rehash; so her church selling agency was 
instructed to get busy and sell it. It mattered not to 
her that people of culture, of wealth, of social position 
had been lured into membership, every blessed son and 
daughter of them was commanded, not asked, not be- 
sought, nor politely requested, but brusquely ordered 
to sell as many of the two books as they could: and 
this, by their venerated leader, their revered teacher, 
the God-anointed discoverer of Christian Science, 
“ Rev.” Mary Baker G. Eddy. And every book so sold 
would add at least a dollar to her hoard! 

I have before me The Christian Science Journal of 
March, 1897, and from page 575 I quote: 


* NOTICE. 


“The Christian Scientists in the United States and 
Canada are hereby enjoined not to teach a student of 
Christian Science for one year, commencing on March 
14th, 1897, 

“ Miscellaneous Writings is calculated to prepare the 
minds of all true thinkers to understand the Christian 
Science Text-book more correctly than a student can. 


282 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


“The Bible, Science and Health with Key to the Scrip- 
tures, and my other published works, are the only proper 
instructors for this hour. It shall be the duty of all Chris- 
tian Scientists to circulate and to sell as many of these 
books as they can. 

“Tf a member of ‘The First Church of Christ, Scientist, 
shall fail to obey this injunction, it will render him liable 
to lose his membership in this Church. 

“ Mary Baker Eppy.” 


There it stands, naked and not ashamed! 

Hundreds of teachers, having accepted payment for 
a course of lessons on Christian Science, were per- 
emptorily halted, instanter, and forbidden to resume 
for a year. Even a student of Mrs. Eddy could not 
prepare the minds of “true thinkers ” to understand 
her three-dollar text-book so correctly as could her 
new two-dollar book of odds and ends. 

The jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court 
stops at the Canadian line; its injunction runs only to 
the border. Mrs. Eddy’s, on the contrary, stepped 
over into a foreign country and, in the language of a 
court, Canadians as well as Americans were com- 
manded to stop teaching the Christian Science gospel 
for a year. Thus the market for Miscellaneous 
Writings was made. The Bible, which everybody 
had, and Mrs. Eddy had not copyrighted, together 
with writings which she had copyrighted, were the 
only “ proper instructors.” Therefore, “It shall be 
the duty of all Christian Scientists to circulate and 
to sell as many of these books as they can.” “ All 
Christian Scientists.’ How many did she think 
“all”? were? In the book itself, on page thirty-four, 
she said, “In 1883 a million of people acknowledge — 


CASH 283 


and attest the blessings of this mental system of 
treating disease.” It was a lie, of course, based on 
nothing; but let us, for the moment, take her at her 
word. If there were a million in 1883, there must 
have been several millions in 1897, and all of these 
several millions were commanded, as a duty, to circu- 
late and sell books upon which every cent of profit 
was Mrs. Eddy’s. In March, 1897, there were, at any 
rate, some twenty thousand members of The First 
Church of Christ, Scientist, and the order was espe- 
cially for them. Obey they must, or render them- 
selves liable to exclusion from the communion of Mrs. 
Eddy’s saints. 

A church is a place of worship, not of barter and 
trade. In Mrs. Eddy’s church it was claimed by her, 
the Pastor-Emeritus, that God spoke, through her, to 
His people; but the threat of refusal to there permit 
of the worship of God, and God’s voice to be heard 
was explicitly made against all who should “ fail to 
obey this injunction” and circulate and sell as many 
books as they could for the pecuniary profit of the 
Pastor-Emeritus. 

It would seem that self-respecting members would 
have resented this tone of command and repudiated 
Mrs. Eddy there and then, repudiated her with disgust 
and loathing. They did nothing of the kind. All 
teachers stopped teaching and sold books. All church 
members bowed the head and for a year circulated and 
sold all the books they could. 

Talk about gold mines! ‘‘ And God said, let there 
be light; and there was light.” And “ God’s Voice to 
this age’ said circulate and sell; and they circulated 
and sold. The analogy is not wholly unwarranted. On 
page fifty-four of Miscellaneous Writings are these 


284 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


words: “ Has Mrs. Eddy lost her power to heal? Has 
the sun forgotten to shine, and the planets to revolve 
around it? ” 

From sun and planets, it is only another step to God. 

Everything indicates that Christian Science is on the 
downward path. The structure reared upon a moun- 
tain of lies is toppling to its fall. The exploiters at the 
head have for years been at one another’s throats. 
The treasure is immense and the greed Eddyistic. 
When Christian Science and its founder have taken 
their place in history nothing more will be needed to 
stamp it and her with gross commercialism and her 
dupes with ignominious idolatry and self-abasement, 
than the leader’s “injunction” and the followers’ 
servile obedience. 

Surely this is enough; but it is not all. The task is 
wearisome and, perhaps, supererogatory; but it is not 
complete, and I proceed. 

In 1897, Mrs. Eddy was seventy-six years old. But 
age did not wither nor did custom stale her infinite 
voraciousness. In 1908, in her eighty-eighth year, she 
made her final grab. She was decrepit and feeble. Her 
head shook with palsy and her fleshless hands trembled. 
When she went for her daily drive, servants bore her 
in their arms to her carriage and her personal attend- 
ant, later supreme head of Christian Science, held 
her erect upon the seat. But in her heart was the 
life-long hungering for money; in her mind the life- 
long guile. 

When a reputable publisher has sold you a book, and 
you have paid for it, he does not try to sell it to you 
over again. He doesn’t transpose chapters, call it a 
new book and try to work off another copy on you. 
He doesn’t take out a couple of lines, substitute a 


CASH 285 


couple of meaningless lines in their place and argue 
that life will not be worth living if you don’t procure 
the book with the priceless additions. No reputable 
publisher would think of resorting to such swindling 
methods. Mrs. Eddy and her publisher did it con- 
stantly. I have seen six or eight copies of Science and 
Health on the shelf of the same person. It was com- 
mon practice for the faithful to buy every new edition. 
In one instance the only newness was a new picture of 
the author. Three dollars for that! The latest of 
these dodges was worked on a trustful following in 
1908, when the suit of the sons was pending. The 
announcement of the book was as follows: 


“TAKE NOTICE! 

“T request Christian Scientists universally to read the 
paragraph beginning at line thirty on page four hundred 
and forty-two in the edition of Science and Health, which 
will be issued February 29. I consider the information 
there given to be of great importance at this stage of the 
workings of animal magnetism and it will greatly aid the 
students in their individual experiences. 

“ Mary Baker G, Eppy,” 


If there were a million Christian Scientists in 1883, 
as Mrs. Eddy said, and several million in 1897, how 
many, according to her reckoning, must there have 
been in 1908? ‘This notice was published in February, 
1908, twenty-five years after the million mark had been 
reached. ‘The Bulletin of Religious Statistics of the 
Federal Government, of 1909, gave the number of 
Christian Scientists in the United States as 85,717, 
with half of the members of the Boston church counted 
twice, once there and again as members of their local 


286 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


church, leaving somewhere around sixty-five thousand 
as the actual number. If Mrs. Eddy’s millions were 
non-existent, even in her imagination, there were some- 
thing like sixty or seventy thousand in the United 
States and less than a hundred thousand in the world. 
Addressing them universally, Mrs. Eddy said—“ Take 
Notice! ” 

She isn’t looking for money this time. She doesn’t 
enjoin anybody. She doesn’t command, or even 
threaten excommunication. She “ requests.” She po- 
litely asks all to read the “ paragraph beginning at line 
thirty of page four hundred and forty-two of the edi- 
tion of Science and Health which will be issued Feb- 
ruary 29,” because it is of “ great importance ” and 
will ‘‘ greatly aid the students.” She didn’t ask the 
readers in the many churches to make it known to the 
members. She didn’t suggest any way of their getting 
it “ free gratis for nothing.” It didn’t occur to her to 
communicate it to the faithful under the caption “ Take 
Notice,” and obviate the necessity of their spending 
three dollars for it. The new paragraph wasn’t so 
lengthy that it would have unduly prolonged a public 
announcement in The Christian Science Journal; but 
reading it in her three-dollar book would so much more 
greatly aid the students, than getting it for nothing, 
that it was better it should reach them so—better for 
them and better for the author of the book—a dollar a 
book better! Such reading, blessing him that gives 
and her that takes, is twice blessed. 

This ‘‘ Take Notice! ” was published when the sons’ 
suit against Mrs. Eddy was pending and at the request 
of my senior counsel, Senator William E. Chandler, 
and with his money, be it added, I bought a copy of 
February 29 edition of her book. It might be sup- 


CASH 287 


posed to contain something new on the subject of Mrs. 
Eddy’s pet delusion, mental malpractice, or, as she 
usually called it, malicious animal magnetism, and, if 
she were beginning to “ hedge,” we wanted to know it. 
It was the Senator’s money, for, as I told him, I fore- 
saw that we should be “stung.”” We were. On page 
four hundred and forty-two, at line thirty, the chapter 
had ended and there was a blank space admitting of a 
short addition without the change of another page of 
the book and at an expense of not more than a dollar. 
Right there these two lines had been added: ‘ Chris- 
tian Scientists, be a law to yourselves, that mental 
malpractice can harm you neither when asleep nor 
when awake.” 

Three dollars apiece from Christian Scientists, uni- 
versally, for that! And they ‘“‘ fell for it,” universally. 
The edition was almost immediately exhausted. 

What a simple thing it would have been for Mrs. 
Eddy to have incorporated the invaluable two lines in 
her announcement and saved a needless outlay of cash 
by the faithful! The “ great benefit ” all would have 
received from being told to ‘‘ be a law to themselves,” 
would have as surely accrued to them, if she had sim- 
ply published the lines over her signature; and, asleep 
or awake, they would have been as amply protected 
from the power of the evil one. But, how would that 
profit Mrs. Eddy? How would that replenish her ex- 
chequer? Not by a picayune. How much the scheme 
netted the schemer, I am unable to say; but, whether 
there were the millions of Mrs. Eddy’s estimate of the 
more conservative number of the Federal Government’s 
Bulletin, fifty thousand is a cautious guess of the 
amount of the final contribution of Christian Scientists 
to the fortune of its “ founder.” Again Mrs. Eddy, in 


288 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


her own person, illustrated the Christian Science con- 
version of a fundamental teaching of Christ into, it is 
more blessed to receive than to give. 

I have so fully shown Mrs. Eddy’s unselfishness in 
this chapter that I cannot forbear to cite the confirm- 
atory evidence of her third husband’s opinion, pub- 
lished by her after his lamented death. From page 
thirty-four, Miscellaneous Writings, I take this pas- 
sage: ‘“‘ Perhaps the following words of her husband, 
the late Dr. Asa G. Eddy, afford the most concise, yet 
complete, summary of the matter: ‘ Mrs. Eddy’s works 
are the outgrowth of her life, I never knew so unselfish 
an individual! ’”’ That settles it. Asa was dead, when 
Mary said he had said these words. But even had he 
been living, his courage would not have been equal to 
a contradiction of his fearsome spouse. 

Senator Chandler denounced the performance as a 
plain swindle. If it was anything but the plainest of 
swindles, I am incapable of understanding the most 
obvious of human motives. 

Had Mrs. Eddy possessed the slightest sense of 
humour, she would never have perpetrated many of 
her tricks; for she would have found them so laughable 
she would have avoided the ridicule she would have 
known them to excite. She took herself with the very 
greatest solemnity, never suspecting that she was the 
funniest fakir that ever happened. 

One or two of Mrs. Eddy’s funniest contrivances for 
enlarging her bank-balance and, correspondingly, con- 
tracting those of her followers, must be given and then 
I am done—completely, I hope. 

In 1899, I was attorney for a client who had libel 
suits for large sums pending against Mrs. Eddy and 
some of her principal aids. The chief defendant was 


CASH 289 


much perturbed and employed many able and costly 
lawyers to protect her interests. I may remark that 
we did not prevail because Mrs. Eddy had cautiously 
omitted the name of the object of her assault from the 
libellous attack and we did not satisfy the court of her 
identity with the plaintiff. As usual, when financial 
exigencies arose, Mrs. Eddy, confronted with the large 
expense of the litigation, cast about for some means of 
shifting the burden on to her trustful and generous 
disciples. Christmas was at hand and she knew she 
would be the recipient of countless presents for which 
she had less than no use, that would contribute nothing 
to the payment of lawyers’ bills. So she contrived, 
without diverting the flow of presents already bought 
and shipped, to supplement it with a useful flood of 
cash. Not wishing to ask for money outright, but with 
the purpose of getting it, in The Christian Science 
Journal, four days before Christmas, she published 
what follows: 


“A CARD. 

“ Beloved: I ask this favour of all Christian Scientists. 
Do not give me on, before or after the forthcoming holi- 
days, aught material except three tea jackets. All may 
contribute to these. One learns to value material things 
only as one needs them, and the costliest things are those 
that one needs least. Among my present needs material 
are these three jackets. Two of darkish, heavy silk, the 
shade appropriate to white hair. The third of heavy satin, 
lighter shade, but sufficiently sombre. Nos. one and two 
to be common sense jackets for Mother to work in, and 
not over trimmed by any means. No. three for best, such 
as she can afford for her drawing-room. Mary BAKER 
Eppy.” 


The first thing to be noticed here is that, although 


200 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


the writer particularly describes tea jackets she says 
Christian Scientists may give her, she doesn’t want 
anyone to give her tea jackets of darkish, heavy 
silk, appropriate to white hair, or of heavy satin, 
lighter shade, but sufficiently sombre, tea jackets for 
“Mother ” to work in, or for drawing room functions. 
Nobody is permitted to send tea jackets of any descrip- 
tion. The ‘“ Beloved millions ” are told they may give 
the tea jackets by sending ‘‘ Mother” the money to 
buy them. ‘ All may contribute.” All may send their 
contributions straight to her and all should send them 
forthwith. The jackets were for Christmas, and 
Christmas was but four days off. 

Was there ever a more amusing circumlocution? 
Did any genius for comicality ever evolve anything 
more excruciatingly comical? Mrs. Eddy saw nothing 
funny init. Her devotees saw nothing funny in it. All 
the faithful contributed. ‘ Obedience” was a test of 
faith. All obeyed, and remitted. 

If the “ Card ” of December 21 had somewhat per- 
plexed her “ beloved,’’ whose Christmas presents were 
on the way to their “ Mother,” what must have been 
their obfuscation, when the jacket contributions had 
been added, to be informed that jackets were not 
wanted. Giving the dear ones a full week to get 
their checks in the mail, Mrs. Eddy then told them 
not to bother any more about it, and, when God 
had fully provided for their own need of clothing, 
He would facilitate their purpose to replenish her 
wardrobe. ‘This is the second communication as it 
appeared in The Christian Science Sentinel of De- 
cember 28: 

A CARD. 
“Beloved: I accept most gratefully your purpose to 


CASH 291. 


clothe me, and when God has clothed you sufficiently, He 
will make it easy for you to clothe one of His little ones. 
Give yourselves no more trouble to get the three garments 
called for by me through last week’s Sentinel. 

“ Mary BAKER Eppy. 


“ Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., Dec. 25, 1899.” 


“One of his little ones ’””—Mrs. Eddy! How de- 
licious! A baby-smile on the face of a lynx. Just one 
thing is plain. Presents and contributions being at 
Pleasant View, or on the way thither, ‘‘ Mother,” 
round-aboutly as usual, tells donors and contributors, 
“all,” to forget it. 

A mild curiosity lingers with me to know how the 
thing panned out, how many tea jackets, gay or sombre, 
came along, notwithstanding the request for cash only, 
and how much money reached Mrs. Eddy’s eager 
hand? But I shall never know. If “all” gave but a 
dollar each, there must have been well over fifty thou- 
sand dollars in the tea-jacket fund. If more, more. 
Who would have exhibited so little zeal and faith and 
love as the contribution of but a single dollar would 
have shown? 

“‘One more, and this the last,” as Othello exclaimed, 
when he gave poor Desdemona that last kiss. 

Now, it is spoons for sale, authentic Christian 
Science spoons, silver teaspoons exquisitely ornamented 
with Mrs. Eddy’s head in bas-relief, and a picture of 
Pleasant View and, most wonderful of all, a Christian 
Science motto by Mrs. Eddy’s very self—and all for 
the beggarly sum of three dollars, for plain silver bowls, 
five dollars for gold-plated bowls. Sermons in stone, 
we had heard of, but here we have a silver-spoon ser- 
mon, a great preachment in tabloid form. Every living 


292 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


person needs the great truth of this little sermon and 
can possess it by buying but a single spoon,—not 
otherwise;—-but those who have the price, will want a 
dozen. ‘“‘ Mother” knows what is good for “ Scien- 
tists,” no less than what is remunerative for “‘ Mother,” 
and ‘‘ Mother ” says—‘ Buy! ” 

Mrs. Eddy’s spoon enterprise, aS announced in her 
Journal for February, 1899, is: 


“ Christian Science Spoons—On each of these most 
beautiful spoons is a motto in bas-relief that every person 
on earth needs to hold in thought. Mother requests that 
Christian Scientists shall not ask to be informed what this 
motto is, but each Scientist shall purchase at least one 
spoon, and those who can afford it, one dozen spoons, that 
their families may read this motto at every meal and their 
guests be made partakers of its simple truth. 

“ Mary Baker G, Eppy.” 


“The above-named spoons,” was added in a post- 


scriptum (as Mrs. Eddy would say) “ will soon be on 
sale at the Christian Science reading rooms throughout 
the country.” 

Reading rooms, ostensibly places where those inter- 
ested in Christian Science could read its literature, 
without buying, almost immediately after their estab- 
lishment became sales-rooms for the Eddy writings. 
Not only had Mrs. Eddy her exclusive publisher, she 
had what amounted to her exclusive book stores, es- 
tablished and maintained without cost to her. Nothing 
but her wares, Christian Science periodicals and a few 
approved pamphlets were sold, and zealous salesmen, 
or women, were constantly in attendance. Bibles could 


CASH 293 


be bought there, too, bound within the same covers as 
her book, two Bibles, two divine revelations in one 
volume. For the sale of the Eddy spoons, the reading- 
rooms were excellent selling agencies, and spoons went 
off like hot cakes. Many bought by the dozen or more. 
Curiosity to learn the invaluable motto, whose saving 
grace could be had only at a cost of three dollars, in- 
duced many to buy. It was a flourishing and highly 
profitable business. Manufacturable at a cost of not 
more than a dollar and a half and two dollars respec- 
tively, the spoons sold for three and five. One of the 
then deluded told me he paid sixty dollars for a dozen 
of the plated bowls. 

A spoon is a gross material thing, the invention of 
civilised man for conveying a material substance from 
one material body to another; and embossed upon this 
material thing was the motto,—‘*‘ Not matter, but mind, 
satisfieth ’—on a SPOON! 

Mrs. Eddy’s income from the speculation, I have no 
means of knowing; but who can believe she valued her 
“motto ” at less than a dollar per spoon, or doubt that 
many thousands were sold? 

Now, I come to ask this question: Was Christian 
Science a religion with Mrs. Eddy, or was it a business? 
If evidence can prove anything, have I not shown, by 
the testimony of Mrs. Eddy herself, that she was the 
most mercenary charlatan that ever took the name of 
God in vain? She did not hesitate to set herself up as 
the equal of Jesus. Too shrewd to make the open 
avowal, she made it by implication and encouraged 
others to make it openly. In The Christian Science 
Journal, when it belonged to, and was published by her, 
it was expressly claimed for her and with her sanction 
that she was in every respect the equal of Jesus. 


294 THE FALSITY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


“ Now, a word about the horror many good people have 
of our making the author of Science and Healih equal 
with Jesus,” said the writer of the article, and ‘“‘ Jesus 
demonstrated over all the beliefs of this false sense of 
life, even over the belief of death, the last enemy to be 
overcome.” And the bald affirmation is made that, 
“Mrs. M. B. G. Eddy has worked out for us, as on a 
blackboard, every point in the demonstrations, or so- 
called miracles of Jesus, showing us how to meet and 
overcome the one and perform the other.” 

In the Sentinel for May 23, 1901, Mrs. Eddy, her- 
self, said “Science and Health make it plain to all 
Christian Scientists that the manhood and womanhood 
of God have already been revealed through Jesus 
Christ and Christian Science, His two witnesses.” 

She didn’t quite dare say, “through Jesus Christ 
and Mary Ann Morse Baker Glover Patterson Eddy.” 
But, if what she said meant anything, it meant just 
that. The pretension that Mrs. Eddy was the equal of 
Jesus, in other words, that Jesus was the equal of Mrs. 
Eddy, is, from the Christian standpoint, the greatest 
sacrilege ever perpetrated. 

“The absurdity the human race can’t swallow hasn’t 
been invented yet.” The twentieth century seems to 
be an age of especially easy belief. We are compelled 
to believe that nothing inventable is beyond belief. Mr. 
Bok offers a hundred thousand dollars for a plan for 
world-peace; the plan is forthcoming and Mr. Bok 
pays. But what prize could call forth an unbelievable 
absurdity? It can’t be invented. Christian Science 
proves it can’t; for nothing can be more extravagantly 
absurd than Christian Science, and Christian Science 
has its hundred thousand believers. 

The great Frenchman, Mirabeau, who was very fat, | 


CASH 295 


once facetiously remarked that his mission in life ap- 
peared to be to test the elasticity of the human skin. 

If Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science has any mission, 
other than to humble our pride of intellect, is it not to 
test, in the most impressive possible way, the elasticity 
of human credulity? 


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PART III 
THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
BY 


CHARLES E. Humiston, M.D., Sc.D. 


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I 


CHRISTIAN SCIENCE—A MEDICAL PARASITE 


which a certain cult carries on its business of 

treating human ailments. The principal asset 
"of this business is deceit. Its principal field of activity 
is among those who are financially prosperous. 

In any community, the adherents of this cult will be 
found to consist largely of pronounced suggestibles, 
augmented by a not inconsiderable number who seek a 
substitute for prevailing religion. 

Scientific medicine is in no wise opposed to religious 
freedom, but scientific medicine takes cognizance of the 
fact that all down the ages, quack-medicine and quack- 
religion have every now and again been linked together 
in unholy alliance for the ulterior purpose of plundering 
the sick. 

Christian Science claims to be a system of healing, 
which makes of it a medical question. Mrs. Eddy’s 
Massachusetts Metaphysical College was chartered for 
medical purposes. 

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is 
announced to the world as the “ Original, standard, and 
only text-book on Christian Science Mind-Healing.” 

The “ Key ” part is limited to Genesis and Revela- 
tion,—two only of the sixty-six books of the Bible. 
Divine healing as a business is the rest of this seven 
hundred-page book. 

The real meat of Christian Science healing can be 


299 


Orr SCIENCE is the trade name under 


300 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


compressed into three magic words: MIND IS ALL. 
When the variations on this theme are played, forward 
and backward, the converse with its variations served 
up, the concert is over. Seven hundred pages of 
repetition of this fundamental proposition make up 
the “context” of Science and Health. ‘This sys- 
tem of healing, mathematically considered, may be 
looked upon as the process of raising its basic state- 
ment to the nth power. The permeation, saturation 
and overwhelming of the patient with this sovereign 
cure-all is Christian Science treatment of human 
ailments. 

Christian Science is not anything new, not even in 
its trade-name. Mrs. Eddy is by no means the first 
“healer ” with a mission to make name, fame and for- 
tune out of the credulity of suffering humanity. The 
oldest written records in existence show recognition of 
attempts to practice the art of healing, and the impostor 
has been active equally as long. The temple-healers of 
Egypt made their appeal to the same phase of human 
intelligence, or lack of it, as do the present-day healers 
of the type of Mrs. Eddy. Medical parasites have 
flourished in all ages and never more successfully than 
now. Primitive tribes regard their imbeciles, idiots and 
epileptics with awe, and oftentimes worship them. 
What shall we say of our present-day civilisation, our 
boasted popular education, our vaunted freedom from 
superstition as we witness the triumph of the imbecility 
of a religious paranoiac over the minds of educated(?) 
people! 

From the medical standpoint, Christian Science is 
but one of a group of medical parasites, and, as such, 
exhibits many of the characteristics common to these 
more or less evanescent parasitic appendages to the 


A MEDICAL PARASITE 301 


practice of medicine. These parasites uniformly admit 
that they are engaged in the practice of medicine, that 
is, dealing with human ailments, real or imaginary. 
There is no other explanation to their insistent demand 
for recognition in the laws governing the practice of 
medicine. Of course, no Christian Science practitioner 
will openly make such a damaging confession to a 
prospective patient. This obvious fact is treated as 
a trade secret. 

A second particular in which there is harmony of 
policy, is defiant refusal to submit to the equal applica- 
tion of the laws designed to regulate the vocation in 
which they are engaged. There are no exceptions in 
this respect. 

A third point on which Christian Science vocifer- 
ously agrees with others of the parasitic group, is utter 
unwillingness to comply with the educational pre- 
requisites which the law and good sense say should 
safeguard the public against incompetence in dealing 
with human life. 

A fourth point of similarity is found in the admission 
that there are some conditions, generally of a surgical 
nature, to which their form of treatment is not well © 
suited. On this point, however, they are not very 
vociferous. 

A fifth disingenuous characteristic is one which like- 
wise applies to the whole parasite family—they dislike 
to have their host, the public, object to any of their 
habits. They resent being disturbed while feeding. 
The public, through its accredited representatives, has 
declared that the treatment of human ailments by any 
method whatsoever, is a business commonly known as 
the practice of medicine. Christian Science is thus 
logically looked for in the medical laws, and in more 


802 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


than half the states of the Union it will be found there, 
safely nestled in the section on exemptions. 

Let it be confessed with shame that the United 
States is the only civilised nation on the face of the 
earth that gives legal sanction to the exploitation of its 
sick. One searches in vain through the medical laws 
of the nations of the earth sufficiently advanced to have 
written laws, for any parallel to the desecration of med- 
ical law that prevails in our own United States of 
America. Profiteering religio-medical parasites exist 
in other countries, but their depredations upon society 
are not there given the sanction and protection of law. 

The present generation is being canvassed by the 
‘medical underworld more diligently and more success- 
fully than any former one. The messages of fake heal- 
ers burden every avenue of publicity. Newspapers, 
‘magazines, billboards flame out with false and mislead- 
‘ing claims of marvelous power to relieve every ill to 
which human flesh is heir. Radio-broadcasting stations 
are maintained for the exclusive purpose of dinning 
into susceptible ears the blatant mouthings of quack- 
ery. The commercial aphorism, “ it pays to advertise,” 
is nowhere better appreciated than by those who gam- 
ble away human life. Mystery and superstition sway 
mankind as effectually now, as at any time in the 
world’s history. Early modern times saw “ Greatrakes 
the Stroker ” armed with a commission from the Holy 
Ghost and reinforced by a few well-placed dreams, 
“heal”? multitudes in Ireland and England. Within 
the memory of people now living, the “ Seer of Pough- 
keepsie—Andrew Jackson Davis ”—a sort of twin re- 
incarnation of Galen and Swedenborg supplemented 
by a suitable amount of “ divine revelation,” after a 
remarkable run of business as a healer, wrote and 


A MEDICAL PARASITE 303 


marketed an eight-hundred page book entitled The 
Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations and a 
Voice to Mankind. This book reached thirty-four 
editions. 

Immediately following the collapse of this monu- 
mental medical fake the “ discoverer” of Christian 
Science came on the scene, to be joined shortly by the 
second appearance of the prophet Elijah, playing a 
return engagement under the name of John Alexander 
Dowie. Small wonder that a ‘“ Mother God ” finds a 
huge waiting list of susceptibles ready to acclaim one 
who modestly admits identity with God in “ quality if 
not quantity,”’ equal if not so bulky. 

Implanted in every living creature is an insistent 
desire to live. Preservation of health is conservation 
of life itself. The medical profession is enlisted in the 
war upon disease and death. Any and every cry of 
human suffering is its call to arms. Christian Science, 
in the field of treatment of human ailments, is a menace 
to society. The untreated surgical condition, the un- 
recognised or concealed communicable disease, the 
resistance to measures of sanitation, the total disregard 
of disease prevention are as much to be regarded as 
enemies to human health and life as are scourge and 
pestilence, and as much to be opposed by that profes- 
sion which is consecrated to the health and happiness 
of mankind. The degree of the medical profession’s 
devotion to the ideals of the healing art is the measure 
of its abhorrence of an impostor; and in the field of 
medicine, Christian Science is a rank impostor. 

Does the normal individual recoil from the heart- 
rending picture of a little child in the final stage of 
untreated diphtheria progressively and surely choking 
to death, every breath a struggle, bulging eyes staring 


804 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


from out a livid countenance, arms outstretched in 
helpless appeal to mother, to father, and these natural 
protectors of their own offspring with vacuous stare 
and unsympathetic mien merely mumbling the sense- 
less jargon of Science and Health? Diphtheria can 
certainly be prevented. It can, almost certainly, be 
cured. Is it not manslaughter to withhold certain 
cure? Whoever is opposed to manslaughter is stupidly 
inconsistent if he be not likewise opposed to the Chris- 
tian Science treatment of diphtheria. Let those who 
will, stand idly by, spineless witnesses to the sacrifice 
of the lives of little children upon the altar of fanati- 
cism and sordid greed. A profession dedicated to the 
saving of human lives is naturally, automatically and 
fundamentally opposed to Christian Science. 

Mrs. Eddy says: ‘‘ Christian Science is more safe 
and potent than any other sanitary method.” 

During the World War, the sanitary and preventive 
measures employed in the American Army resulted in 
a typhoid incidence of but five to one hundred thou- 
sand. The prevalence of typhoid fever in the Union 
Army during the Civil War was four hundred times as 
great. Christian Scientists protested the use of these 
very efficient life-saving measures. When Christian 
Science says: “ The blood, heart, lungs, brain, have 
nothing to do with life ” it, at once, comes into conflict 
with medical science. If the statement were made that 
brain has nothing to do with Christian Science, there 
might be less ground for controversy. Viewed med- 
ically, Christian Science is a mental disorder with a 
. high mortality. It is the confederate of contagion and 
the ally of disease, the antithesis of reason and common 
sense in everything pertaining to the health and well- 
being of the human body. The founder of Christian 


A MEDICAL PARASITE 305 


Science teaches the abolition of marriage, yet illus- 
trates progressive polygamy. She condemns the physi- 
cian, yet calls in the dentist and the surgeon. All the 
time and everywhere inconsistency and contradiction 
which would be amusing but for the tragedy of it—the 
useless, senseless, cruel and inexcusable sacrifice of 
human life. 

The “ cures ” of Christian Science do not justify this 
cult’s engaging in the business of treating human ail- 
ments. The ailments that are remedied by this form 
of treatment have a mortality rate of almost zero, when 
given no treatment whatever, and are equally well 
‘treated ” by any of the methods common to the suc- 
cessful quack, namely, a display of unbounded self- 
confidence, awe-inspiring boasts, unblushing lying, 
coupled with that skill in playing upon the credulity of 
human nature that characterises the “ inspired leader ” 
tinged with a mental twist. 

The harm of Christian Science lies in its profoundly 
obtuse inability to discriminate between real and imagi- 
nary disease. If Christian Science confined its efforts 
to pandering to that somewhat numerous class who 
enjoy poor health and whose greatest happiness is at- 
tained in discoursing upon the baifling and unusual ail- 
ments with which they have been favoured for ever and 
ever so long a time, then, sane and wholesome medicine 
would show only amused interest. But the tragedy of 
Christian Science lies in its arrogant and pernicious 
activity in undertaking the management of that great 
group of diseases wherein favourable outcome can con- 
fidently be expected to follow the timely use of proper 
medical or surgical treatment, but which through reli- 
ance upon Christian Science is doomed to certain 
disaster, 


806 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


The less people have the matter with them, the better 
they are suited to Christian Science, which is in reality 
doing nothing with the greatest formality. The vanish- 
ing point of the usefulness of Christian Science is 
rapidly reached as approach is made toward real and 
Serious diseases, and especially those of an organic 
nature. Here the vicious side of this colossal delusion 
stalks forth to titter in the face of human misery and 
to offer its obstructive tactics and forces to the use of 
the only effective treatment known. Thus is diph- 
theria aided in choking out the lives of helpless, inno- 
cent little children; cancer protected in its spread to 
hopeless involvement of distant tissues; strangulated 
hernia insured to produce gangrene and rupture of 
viscera with inevitable death from peritonitis; the 
diabetic led to indiscretions of diet that precipitate 
fatal coma; the consumptive ordered to undertake 
vigourous muscular exertion with consequent disas- 
trous hemorrhage; the mortality rate of appendicitis 
stupidly multiplied; the diseased heart-muscle over- 
taxed with ill-advised exercise, and the unfortunate 
sufferer goaded to involuntary suicide; scarlet fever 
scattered broadcast; typhoid fever and smallpox en- 
couraged, and all other communicable diseases pro- 
vided with the very conditions most favourable for 
their spread. All this forced upon a suffering public 
by the most efficient organisation of religio-medical 
parasites that ever feasted with gluttonous appetite 
upon the credulity of mankind. 


IT 
DECEIT 


HE most elementary rules of proof demand that 
witnesses be truthful, unprejudiced, and pos- 
sessed of some degree of real knowledge of the 

matter under consideration. If there is to be a reason- 
ably just estimation of the value of Christian Science 
as a method of treating human ailments, the simple 
rules of evidence must be applied. It must be shown 
that the witnesses are telling the truth, the whole truth 
and nothing but the truth. It must be ascertained 
whether or not the advocates of Christian Science are 
in any way prejudiced. And further, it must be demon- 
strated that those who undertake to treat human ail- 
ments by this method have sufficient knowledge of the 
human body in health and in disease to enable them to 
recognise disease when it is present, and to decide when 
a diseased condition is healed. 

Since the “testimonials of healing” are all from 
Christian Science sources, we can examine all of the 
witnesses at one time by an examination of the whole 
of Christian Science as set forth in Science and Health 
with Key to the Scriptures, the “ original, standard, 
and only text-book on Christian Science Mind Heal: 
ing.” We must regard the “ testimonials of healing ”’ 
as coming from consistent Christian Scientists. No 
one should complain of the fairness of this course. If 
a Christian Scientist claims to have been healed of 
some bodily ailment, it is both logical and fair to ascer- 


307 


308 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


tain just what that particular bodily ailment means to 
a consistent Christian Scientist. 

Fortunately, every facility needed for such an inves- 
tigation has been placed at our disposal by Mrs. Eddy 
herself. In Science and Health we have been provided 
with the last word on the subject of Christian Science 
Mind Healing. The whole copyrighted story is ours 
for the sum of three dollars. Whatever Mrs. Eddy 
commands her followers to say, that they say. What- 
ever Mrs. Eddy tells her followers to do, that they do. 
What her followers are directed to say and do can be 
definitely established by consulting the text-book, 
Science and Health. On the authority of Mrs. Eddy, 
by the authority of Mrs. Eddy, we shall undertake to 
establish that the followers of Mrs. Eddy in their “ tes- 
timonials of healing,” to normal individuals, are neces- 
sarily preposterous and fatuous. This will be shown 
by quotations from the last edition of Science and 
Health, which every consistent Christian Scientist be- 
lieves to be perfect. 

Truth as sincerity and genuineness in expressing 
feeling or belief is not “‘ Christian Science truth.” Mrs. 
Eddy assigns a meaning to “truth ” which cannot be 
found anywhere else. ‘‘ Truth” in Science and Health 
has very little in common with veracity, verity or veri- 
simWitude. However, let us stick to truth as defined 
and understood by those who possess common honesty, 
common sense and sound judgment; otherwise, at- 
tempting to evaluate testimony will be a waste of time 
and effort. 

“Evidence drawn from the five physical senses re- 
lates solely to human reason.” (Page 117, line 24.) 
“Science reversing the testimony of the physical 
senses.” (P. 120, 1. 20.) “Is a man sick if the ma- 


DECEIT 309 


terial senses indicate that he is in good health? No. 
And is he well if the senses say he is sick? Yes.” 
(120-12) “Science denies all disease.” (120-23) At 
the very outset our witness is demonstrating self- 
contradiction. A man is not sick if his senses fail to 
indicate any bodily ailment. A man is not sick even if 
his senses reveal that he is sick. Going or coming, man 
is not sick. ‘The term Christian Science was intro- 
duced by the author to designate the scientific system 
of divine healing.” (123-16) 

Since under no conditions is a man sick, under no 
conditions can a man have any use for a “‘ system of 
healing.” Here is a “system of healing ” discovered 
by Mrs. Eddy, who declares: ‘No human pen nor 
tongue taught me the Science contained in this book— 
Science and Health,’ and on the same authority this 
system of healing has no ailment to heal. Having no 
work to do, Christian Science must be engaged in doing 
nothing. ‘‘ The Bible was my only text-book ” (110- 
14), says Mrs. Eddy, yet the Bible recognises sickness: 
“And Jesus answering said unto them, they that are 
whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.” 
(Luke 5: 31.) 

If there is no such thing as sickness, there is no need 
of Christian Science. If there is nothing to do in the 
healing line, in reality Christian Science is not doing 
any real healing; in short, Christian Science is doing 
nothing. Christian Science is doing nothing with great 
formality. 

“The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing 
to do with life.” (151-18) Diseases of the blood, heart 
disease, consumption of the lungs, insanity, or other 
impairment of brain function are thus entitled to no 
consideration whatsoever from the Christian Scientist. 


810 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


What of a witness who claims to cure or heal something 
which the patient never did and never could have? 
“You say a boil is painful; but that is impossible.” 
(153-16) Dear Reader: Did you ever have a boil? 
Are you now convinced that it was painless? The 
truthfulness of Christian Science is as evident as the 
joy of a boil, and as conclusively proved as that “ the 
blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with 
life.’ We begin to doubt the credibility of Christian 
Science as a witness. 

Do the statements concerning the curing of con- 
sumption in its last stages, and the healing of “ incur- 
able’ spinal disease, stand up under investigation? 
Are destroyed portions of the central nervous system 
actually restored? Are these testimonies of healing 
coming from sources where the evidences of the senses 
are wholly disregarded? Do these witnesses believe 
that the kidneys they possess are altogether imaginary? 
Can these witnesses deny the evidences of their senses 
in the face of an accident which mangles the body of a 
child and without feeling of sympathy tell the dis- 
tracted mother to say: “Oh, never mind! You’re not 
hurt, so don’t think you are” ? (154-33) Is their an- 
swer to suffering on every and all occasions: “‘ You are 
mistaken” ?. Do these witnesses honestly believe that, 
“‘ Christian Science heals organic disease as surely as it 
heals what is called functional” ? (162-25) Do the 
witnesses who have furnished the testimonials of Chris- 
tian Science really believe “ If you or I should appear 
to die, we should not be dead” ? (164-17) Do they 
think Mrs. Eddy is still living? Does Christian Science 
teach that the five senses can never be believed? What 
regard for truth and veracity can be expected of such 
prejudiced witnesses? 


DECEIT 311 


Are the testimonials of healing coming from wit- 
nesses who have an understanding of the human body 
in health and in disease? If not, of what value is such 
testimony? Do Christian Scientists make diagnoses? 
Of course not. Knowing nothing of anatomy or path- 
ology, diagnosis of any diseased condition is impossible, 
besides, ‘‘ The ordinary practitioner examining bodily 
symptoms, telling the patient that he is sick, and treat- 
ing the case according to his physical diagnosis, would 
naturally induce the very disease he is trying to cure.” 
(161-24) 

“‘ A physical diagnosis of disease—since mortal mind 
must be the cause of disease—tends to induce disease.” 
(370-20) ‘“‘ Realise that the evidence of the senses is 
not to be accepted in the case of sickness.” (386-1) 

Since Christian Science does not make a diagnosis— 
dare not make a diagnosis—does not know how to 
make a diagnosis—is afraid to listen to a diagnosis—is 
powerless if it concedes a diagnosis—what of the list 
of diseases in the “ testimonials of healing” ? If the 
evidences of the senses is not to be accepted, what kind 
or character of evidence is to be accepted? ‘“‘ Know 
that in Science you cannot check a fever after admit- 
ting that it must have its course. To fear and admit 
the power of disease, is to paralyse mental and scien- 
tific demonstration.” (376-29) 

“¢ Admit the common hypothesis that food is the nu- 
triment of life, and there follows the necessity for 
another admission in the opposite direction—that food 
has power to destroy life, God, through a deficiency or 
an excess, a quality or a quantity.”’ (388-12) ‘A case 
of convulsions, produced by indigestion, came under 
my observation. In her belief the woman had chronic 
liver complaint, and was then suffering from a compli- 


312 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


cation of symptoms connected with this belief. I cured 
her in a few minutes.” (389-28) Here we have a 
“testimonial of healing” from Mrs. Eddy herself. 
Having just declared that any. admission that food is 
nourishing entails the danger of destroying God; on the 
very next page the discoverer of Christian Science in- 
vites God’s destruction by observing “a case of con- 
vulsions produced by indigestion.” Getting rid of a 
case of indigestion and incidentally rescuing God from 
destruction was a highly important and extraordina- 
rily valuable piece of work, and accomplished in a 
few minutes, too. 

“Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and 
supremacy of mind it is better for Christian Scientists 
to leave surgery and the adjustment of broken bones 
and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while the 
mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental recon- 
struction and to the prevention of inflammation. 
Christian Science is always the most skillful surgeon, 
but surgery is the branch of healing which will be last 
acknowledged.” (401-27) 

The reason for this suicidal confession of failure on 
the part of Christian Science will become increasingly 
obvious a little farther on in this book. 

“Discard all notions about lungs, tubercles, inher- 
ited consumption, or disease arising from any circum- 
stance, and you will find that mortal mind, when in- 
structed by Truth, yields to divine power, which steers 
the body into health.” (425-32) Thus does Christian 
Science cure consumption, steering the body into health 
—steering a new lung into the body when “ one lung 
is gone.” 

“Man is the same after as before a bone is broken 
or the body guillotined.” (427-16) 


DECEIT 313 


“The author has healed hopeless organic disease, 
and raised the dying to life and health.” (428-30) 

Christian Science has no use for any knowledge of 
the human body in health nor in disease. ‘‘ Treatises 
on anatomy, physiology and health, sustained by what 
is termed material law, are the promoters of sickness 
and disease.” (179-21) ‘“* Many a hopeless case of 
disease is induced by a single post mortem examination 
—not from infection nor from contact with material 
virus, but from the image brought before the mind; it 
is a mental state, which is afterward outlined on the 
body.” (196-25) 

A post-mortem examination is something terrifying 
to Christian Scientists. ‘This quotation from their 
text-book is not the full explanation. An autopsy in- 
variably administers a merciless jolt to the easy going 
of divine healing. It is a distinct business reverse 
fraught with disastrous possibilities. Gouging the next 
victim becomes more difficult. (This use of the word 
““ gouge ”’ is said to be colloquial in the United States. 
Since Eddyism was “ discovered” in this country, 
““ souging ” cannot be said to be foreign to Christian — 
Science.) Argument is not needed to establish that 
Christian Science knows nothing of anatomy, physi- 
ology, pathology, hygiene or that it does not attempt 
to recognise the character or extent of any disease. 

Every Christian Scientist hastens to disclaim all 
knowledge along this line. ‘“‘ You may call the disease 
by name when you mentally deny it; but by naming it 
audibly, you are liable under some circumstances to 
impress it upon the thought.” (412-10) Thus Chris- 
tion Science practice does not permit physical examina- 
tion and diagnosis, and cautions against using names 
of diseases. 


3814 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Soap and water do not stand very high in Christian 
Science. ‘‘ The daily ablutions of an infant are no 
more natural nor necessary than would be the process 
of taking a fish out of water every day and covering it 
with dirt in order to make it thrive more vigourously 
in its own element.” (413-12) ‘‘ The less we know or 
think about hygiene, the less we are predisposed to 
sickness.” (389-5) 

“‘ Testimonials of healing ”’ from persons whose fidel- 
ity to the truth has so far deserted them as to sanction 
such statements as appear on every page of Science and 
Health, denying the existence of organs such as the 
lungs, can hardly be believed when they affirm that a 
lung is entirely destroyed, nor yet when they assert 
that the destroyed lung is restored. Persons who have 
become convinced that they no longer are possessed of 
livers or brains, can scarcely qualify as unprejudiced 
on the subject of liver or brain disease. 

Christian Science pleads guilty to the charge of total 
ignorance of every form of real disease. Mrs. Eddy 
was at one time somewhat of a homeopath, evidently 
a dispenser of diluted medicine. ‘‘ The author has at- 
tenuated natrium muriaticum (common table salt) 
until there was not a single saline property left. The 
salt had ‘lost his savour’; and yet with one drop of 
that attenuation in a goblet of water, and a teaspoonful 
of water administered at intervals of three hours, she 
has cured a patient sinking in the last stages of typhoid 
fever. The highest attenuation of homeopathy and the 
most potent rises above matter into mind.” (153-5) 

‘“‘ A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty, fell into 
my hands. It was a terrible case. Tapping had been 
employed, and yet, as she lay in her bed, the patient 
looked like a barrel. I prescribed the fourth attenu- 


DECEIT 315 


ation of argentum nitratum with occasional doses of a 
high attenuation of sulphuris. She improved percept- 
ibly.. Believing then somewhat in the ordinary theories 
of medical practice, and learning that her former physi- 
cian had prescribed these remedies, I began to fear an 
aggravation of symptoms from their prolonged use, and 
told the patient so, but she was unwilling to give up the 
medicine while she was recovering. It then occurred 
to me to give her unmedicated pellets and watch the 
result. I did so and she continued to gain. Finally, 
she said she would give up her medicine for one day, 
and risk the effects. After trying this, she informed 
me that she could get along two days without globules, 
but on the third day she again suffered, and was re- 
lieved by taking them. She went on in this way, taking 
the unmedicated pellets, and receiving occasional visits 
from me, but employing no other means, and she was 
cured.” 

‘“‘ Metaphysics, as taught in Christian Science, is the 
next stately step beyond homeopathy.” (156-5) In 
other words, just beyond next-to-nothing, lies nothing, 
otherwise ycleped Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy here 
gives us an account of her success in dealing with 
typhoid fever and dropsy by homeopathic medication. 
The typhoid case “‘ sinking in the last stages,’”’ and the 
dropsy case “‘ given up by the faculty—a terrible case.” 

These case records are decidedly incomplete. ‘“ Ty- 
phoid fever ” is a diagnosis. ‘‘ Dropsy ” is not. Dropsy 
is a symptom of not fewer than fifteen diseased con- 
ditions, and many of these diseased conditions are not 
even closely related to one another. Was it typhoid 
fever? The specific cause of typhoid fever was first 
seen in 1880, long after Mrs. Eddy had demonstrated 
to her own satisfaction that the only cases of typhoid 


316 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


fever to be found anywhere by anybody were wholly 
imaginary, and that these imaginary cases seemed to 
exist by virtue of the fact that some erroneous thinking 
had been done. There is the bare chance that some 
indiscreet individual may have made a diagnosis of 
typhoid fever, whereupon by that overt act the disease 
became fastened upon the unsuspecting patient—not 
really, of course, only just nearly enough to make a 
useful illustration that disease can be cured by next to 
nothing, thus preparing the reader for the “next 
stately step beyond homeopathy ”—absolutely nothing, 
or ‘“‘ Metaphysics as taught in Christian Science.” 

Was the condition of “sinking in the last stages ” 
due to an intestinal hemorrhage, perforation of an ulcer 
of the bowel, or to toxemia? ‘These conditions are to 
be feared in typhoid fever. Whatever it was, any 
physician will agree that diluted common salt did no 
harm.’ Every physician knows that typhoid fever is a 
self-limited disease, and that most cases recover even 
if no medication whatever is resorted to. Every pro- 
gressive physician also knows that typhoid fever can 
be prevented. It is likewise a matter of common 
knowledge that Christian Scientists have resisted to the 
utmost those sanitary measures which have made 
typhoid fever little more than a memory in some of 
the largest cities of America. 

‘““A case of dropsy, given up by the faculty.” A 
large share of the “ cures” of Christian Science are of 
cases “‘ given up ” by the doctors. The testimonials of 
healing offered by the followers of this “ divine system 
of healing ” are close imitations of those furnished by 
Mrs. Eddy in her own writings. The condition is some- 
thing shocking; the case has been “ given up ” by med- 
ical practitioners; the disease is incurable, etc. “ It 


DECEIT 317 


was a terrible case.”? Case of what? Which one of the 
fifteen and more diseased conditions which cause 
dropsy was this one? We may assume the case to have 
been one of valvular heart disease with broken compen- 
sation, something common in the experience of every 
physician. The records of every hospital show a pro- 
cession of these cases. Coming in with ascites “ look- 
ing like a barrel,” treated by rest in bed, and being 
discharged ‘‘ cured” of their dropsy. No physician 
would attach any importance to the administration of 
argentum nitratum and sulphuris. Lunar caustic and 
brimstone have no role in the therapeutics of heart dis- 
ease, but that does not prove that digitalis is not a life- 
saving remedy for this numerous class of sufferers. 

“One stately step beyond homeopathy.” This 
“stately step ” has been the final, fatal step for many 
a sufferer from cardiac insufficiency, beguiled into a 
feeling of complacent security through poring over the 
pages of Science and Health and accepting as truth its 
bastard philosophy of the nothingness of matter. 

Mrs. Eddy’s prejudice against the medical profession 
stands out as a cardinal feature of Science and Health. 
Such expressions as the following abound: “ Ignorant 
of the fact that a man’s belief produces disease and all 
its symptoms, the ordinary physician is liable to in- 
crease disease with his own mind.” (159-30) ‘ The 
ordinary practitioner, examining the bodily symptoms, 
telling the patient that he is sick, and treating the case 
according to his physical diagnosis, would naturally 
induce the very disease he is trying to cure.” (161-24) 
“The seeming disease, caused by a majority of human 
beliefs that man must die, or produced by mental 
assassins, does not in the least disprove Christian 
Science.” (164-18) The medical profession being 


3818 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


naturally more than any other class given to thought 
and consideration of sickness and disease are thus 
necessarily the most guilty of all mental assassins. 

“‘ Christian Science rises above the evidence of the 
corporeal senses.” (448-12) ‘“ You do not deny the 
mathematician’s right to distinguish the correct from 
the incorrect among the examples on the blackboard, 
nor disbelieve the musician when he distinguishes con- 
cord from discord. In like manner it should be granted 
that the author understands what she is saying.” 
(452-32) The mathematician and the musician, why 
not the physician? 

‘“‘A Christian Scientist never recommends material 
hygiene.” (453-30) ‘‘ Man is not matter; he is not 
made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material ele- 
ments.” (475-6) ‘“‘ Christian Science reveals man as 
the idea of God, and declares the corporeal senses to 
be mortal and erring illusions.” (477-11) 

No consistent Christian Scientist believes the evi- 
dence of his senses. Eyes see not. Ears hear not. 
Nerves feel not. A nose smells not. A tongue tastes 
not. What a Christian Scientist sees, feels, tastes, 
hears, or smells, he knows to be false and untrue. 
What a witness to testify to the healing of human ail- 
ments—“ so-called ” ailments! Where, indeed, is there 
a court that would accept such “testimony ” as evi- 
dence? However, before passing on the credibility of 
those who furnish the “ testimonials of healing,” con- 
sider the following remarkable instruction which Mrs. 
Eddy gives to her followers when they find themselves 
beaten so decisively that anybody and everybody 
recognises it. } 

In the closing sentences of the chapter on Teaching 
Christian Science, this apostle of “‘ Truth ” unblush- 


DECEIT 319 


ingly counsels deceit, duplicity and dishonesty. ‘If 
from an injury or from any cause, a Christian Scientist 
was seized with pain so violent that he could not treat 
himself mentally, and the Scientists had failed to re- 
lieve him, the sufferer could call a surgeon, who would 
give him a hypodermic injection. Then, when the 
belief of pain was lulled, he could handle his own case 
mentally. Thus it is that we prove all things; (and) 
hold fast that which is good.” (464-13) 

The spectacle of Christian Science in panic-stricken 
flight before a pain which is readily vanquished by an 
ordinary physician with a hypodermic injection must 
be anything but inspiring to the followers of a 
“Mother-God.” The situation must be salvaged. 
** All-in-all” is ‘“‘down-and-out.” “Error” is tri- 
umphant—but no, the doctor only seemed to “lull” 
the pain; the cure was due to the mental treatment 
which was administered after the pain was gone. Why 
was the doctor called? What was the surgeon doing 
there? What a stupid question! The doctor was there 
for the purpose of “ giving up ” the case. For is it not 
true, that the greatest cures of Christian Science are 
those of hopeless and incurable diseases which doctors 
have “ given up” ? 

The brazen trickery of Christian Scientists in claim- 
ing all the credit for the recovery of patients who have 
escaped the ministrations of the undertaker only 
through the skill and knowledge of regular physicians 
is a constant, conspicuous characteristic of the mem- 
bers of this cult, 

After an experience of this kind, the Christan 
Science patient emerges either cured af his Christian 
Science or shorn of every vestige of dependability as to 
his truth and veracity concerning the whole matter. If 


320 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


the reader wishes confirmation of this indictment, let 
him listen in on any Christian Science Wednesday 
evening meeting, where the faithful are wont to gather 
to out-testify one another. 

“Why support the popular systems of medicine 
when the physician may perchance be an infidel and 
may lose ninety and nine patients, while Christian 
Science cures its hundred’? (344-26) One per cent. 
against one hundred per cent. does seem like illogical 
odds; still there are times when a hypodermic comes in 
mighty handy. ‘ But in this volume of mine there are 
no contradictory statements—at least none which are 
apparent to those who understand its propositions well 
enough to pass judgment upon them.” (345-15) 

How wonderful! Divine Science reduced to the dire 
extremity of brazen falsehood, resorting to the often- 
needed and much-overworked explanation(?), ‘ You 
do not understand! ” 

Christian Science offers its “ proofs,” and for their 
understanding lays down the following condition: 
‘“*One who understands Christian Science can heal the 
sick on the divine Principle of Christian Science, and 
this practical proof is the only feasible evidence that 
one does understand this Science.” (345-17) Every 
successful physician in the civilised world can qualify 
under this condition. They excel in numbers the com- 
bined membership of the Christian Science churches. 
In explaining how a dose of poison kills even when 
swallowed by mistake, Mrs. Eddy confesses by the 
majority of opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority 
of opinions in the sick chamber. (178-5). The major- 
ity of opinions of medical men, outnumbering as they 
do the whole of the Christian Science tribe, declare that 
the therapeutic methods of Christian Scientists were 


ee 


DECEIT 821 


known and understood and used by the medical pro- 
fession for centuries before Mrs. Eddy was born, and 
that the only new thing in Mrs. Eddy’s Christian 
Science is its meaningless name, and even that is not 
original with Mrs. Eddy. Qualified by education; 
qualified by experience; qualified by common honesty; 
qualified by professional ideals that place the healing 
art above its pecuniary emoluments; qualified by a 
moral standard which spurns the testimony of false- 
hood, the medical profession sits in judgment on the 
“proofs ” of healing offered by Christian Science. 

With full knowledge of the qualifications of the wit- 
nesses, of their ignorance of the human body in health 
and in disease, of their fanatical prejudice, of their 
duplicity in openly claiming to have cured patients 
who owe their recovery to regular physicians, let us 
attempt to evaluate the “proofs” contained in the 
Testimonials of Healing—‘ proofs”? made up of the 
testimony of witnesses whose handicap is such that 
they could not tell the truth if they would, and whose 
teaching has been such that they would not tell the 
truth if they could. However, let us proceed to weigh 
the testimony. 


III 


THE “ CURES ” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


found in Science and Health under the caption 

Fruitage, is necessary in order to enable one to 
understand the class and character of diseased condi- 
tions which are offered as “proofs” of the healing 
power of Mrs. Eddy’s “ discovery.” 

First of all, one notes the fairly uniform structure of 
the testimonials as they appear on the pages of the 
“little book.” Three prominent characteristics stand 
forth in a typical testimonial, namely: 1. How Chris- 
tian Science came into the sufferer’s life and healed 
him. 2. An account of the conditions claimed to have 
been healed. 3. Adoration of Mother Eddy. 

The uniformly good English, which characterises all 
these letters here republished from The Christian 
Science Journal and The Christian Science Sentinel, 
shows the effect of careful editing and rewriting. It 
may be assumed that, from the standpoint of Christian 
Scientists, these testimonials are entirely satisfactory 
in form and substance. 

Many of the testimonials name the diseases alleged 
to have been healed. Others name symptoms only, 
while a goodly number enumerate bad habits, violent 
temper, lack of business honesty, infidelity, and other 
characteristics of immoral persons. One sees little evi- 
dence of diagnoses as made by physicians in the lan- 
guage and presentation of these cases, though it is 


322 


Cem scrutiny of the Testimonies of Healing, 


THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3828 


averred time and again that the highest medical talent 
and the best known specialists have “ given up” the 
sufferers to die; in fact, this occurs so frequently that 
“‘ given up by doctors ” is almost entitled to be named 
as a fourth constant feature of a typical Christian 
Science testimonial. The very obvious desire to have 
it understood that something worth while was accom- 
plished, readily accounts for the numerous instances of 
the healing of incurable conditions of disease. In a 
certain sense these testimonials are competitive, and it 
is hardly in keeping with human nature to tell a poorer 
story than the one just listened to. Of course, it will 
be pointed out that these testimonials are entirely di- 
vested of all semblance of things “ human” and,— 
well, perhaps they are, but the readers of this book are 
assumed to be really human beings, possessed of com- 
mon sense and sound judgment. 

The eighty-four testimonials published as a part of 
the Text-book, enumerate as “ reformed and healed ”’ 
about three times that number of “ mortal errors.” 
Without being in the least pedantic, and making due 
allowance for the lack of technical medical knowledge 
on the part of those who assert that they were healed, 
let us examine the record. 

Those who were only reformed of immorality do not 
interest us here, except that it would be helpful to know 
whether or not those who confessed to dishonesty were 
wholly cured in this respect. Corroborating testimony © 
on this point is not offered, and it may be said in pass- 
ing that Christian Science “cures” are uniformly 
uncorroborated. 

For convenience of analysis, the diseases and syn- 
dromes named, or suggested, in the eighty-four testi- 
monials are first abstracted: 


824 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


1. P. 600: Rheumatism healed. 

2. P. 601: Astigmatism and hernia healed; chronic 
constipation; nervous headache. 

3. P. 602: Substance of lungs restored; acute bowel- 
trouble; bronchitis; sprained ankle. 

4. P. 603: Fibroid tumour healed in a few days. 
Fibroid tumour of not less than fifty pounds with con- 
tinuous hemorrhage for eleven years; growth of 
eighteen years. 

5. P. 604: Insanity and epilepsy healed. Called in- 
curable by six doctors, dying by one. 

6. P. 605: A case of mental surgery. Fracture of 
the middle of the humerus cured by ten minutes’ read- 
ing of * our text-book,” back at work in thirty minutes. 
Diagnosis confirmed by X-ray after the bone had 
healed; a slight thickening remained. 

7. P. 607: Cataract quickly cured. Periodical sore 
eyes, called iritis and cataract by “ many doctors.” 
Cured by four hours’ reading of Science and Health. 

8. P. 608: Valvular heart-disease healed. Valvular 
heart-disease with all the accompaniments, such as ex- 
treme nervousness, weakness, dyspepsia and insomnia. 

9. P. 609: The true physician found. Indigestion 
and gastritis in the worst form, seventeen years’ stand- 
ing; asthma for four years; glasses for four years; had 
swallowed every known medicine. MHealed in two 
weeks; smoking and drinking habits also cured. 

10. P. 610: Cancer and consumption healed. In- 
ternal cancer and consumption treated by the best 
physicians in New York, Minneapolis, and Duluth. 
Given up as incurable. Later had painless childbirth 
in thirty minutes. 

11. P. 612: A remarkable case. Case pronounced 
incurable by some of the best physicians in Boston; 


THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 325 


child hovering between life and death; gastric catarrh, 
rickets, not a natural bone in his body. Would lie in 
spasms for half a day. Travelled on the car for two 
weeks, and we were the only ones in our car who 
throughout the journey did not get train sick. Child 
grew up healthy in every way. Mother cured of the 
need of glasses. Facial blemishes removed, teeth 
restored. 

12. P. 614: Intense suffering overcome. Sciatic 
rheumatism for three years; had hypodermic injec- 
tions. A physician said an operation was necessary, 
scraping the sciatic nerve. Another physician claimed 
liable to pass on from weak heart. Completely cured 
in three days by reading Science and Healih. 

13. P. 615: Healed of rheumatism and Bright’s dis- 
ease. “I did not expect to live very long. I did not 
‘go to the meetings, nor did I read Science and Health 
to be cured—not thinking of that—but to be saved 
from an everlasting hell hereafter.” 

14. P. 616: Grateful for many blessings. Hopeless 
invalid for seven years; painful back from operation; 
could not lie down; had to sit propped in a chair with 
pillows. One day while out walking was told of 
Science and Health. Bought book and read it; healed 
entirely. 

15. P. 617: Freed from “ neurasthenic ” and other 
troubles. Pronounced a neurasthenic by a professor 
of materia medica, whose works are in general use. 
Had had eleven physicians. Almost all known drugs 
were prescribed, and many patent medicines. Read 
Science and Health eleven times straight ahead and 
many times skipping about. The book did the work 
and now a well man. 

16. P. 618: Many ills overcome. Muscular rheu- 


826 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


matism, dropsy and constipation of thirty years’ stand- 
ing. Husband cured of tobacco habit and kidney 
trouble. 

17. P. 619: A helpful healing. Neuralgia of the 
stomach requiring morphine; severe case of croup in 
little boy cured almost immediately by reading Science 
and Health. 

18. P. 620: Relief from many ills. Deafness, 
catarrh, tonsillitis. 

19. P. 621: Health and peace attained. Treated by 
eminent physicians for hereditary consumption, torpid 
liver and many other diseases. 

20. P. 622: Health and peace gained. Asthma, 
neuralgia in aggravated form, tobacco and _ liquor 
habits. 

21. P. 623: Consumption quickly cured. What the 
doctors called consumption in its last stages; was get- 
ting morphine. Cured by reading Science and Health. 
Gained forty pounds in three months. 

22. P. 624: A profitable study. Physicians said one 
lung was gone and the other affected with tuberculosis. 
I have two healthy lungs now. 

23. P. 626: Healed of infidelity and many physical 
ills. Treated by leading physicians. Bright’s disease, 
gravel in the kidneys, acute inflammation of bladder 
and prostate gland. Cured. 

24. P. 627: Diseased eyes cured. Body completely 
covered with sores. Eye trouble pronounced incurable 
by two doctors, one a specialist. A clergyman and a 
doctor wept at the bedside almost daily. Healed in- 
stantaneously by Christian Science. 

25. P. 628: The text-book healed me. Under 
physicians twelve years for abnormal growth. 

26. P. 628; Obstinate stomach trouble healed. 


THE “CURES ” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3827 


27. P. 630: Dyspepsia quickly healed. Dyspepsia 
and constipation. ‘‘I was permanently and I might 
say instantly healed of these two conditions.” 

28, P. 631: After twenty years’ suffering. Pro- 
nounced spinal trouble by a physician; healed 
instantaneously. 

29. P. 633: From despair to hope and joy. Sick 
from childhood; called incurable by doctors; Bright’s 
disease in the last stages; prominent specialists knew 
the case to be extreme; physicians “gave me up.” 
Perfectly healed by reading the “ little book.” 

30. P. 634: Truth makes free. Catarrh, sore throat, 
dyspepsia, bronchitis and loss of sixty pounds weight; 
cured in six weeks. 

31. P. 635: Deaf ears unstopped. Hereditary deaf- 
ness; catarrh of the head; grew worse despite the 
efforts of the best specialists of England and America. 
Cured by less than the first fifty pages of Science and 
Health. 

32. P. 637: Saved from insanity and suicide. Heart 
trouble, kidney complaint, headache, female trouble, 
manifested insanity and tendency to commit suicide. 
Daughter “‘ given up” to die with lingering consump- 
tion. Daughter went on three meals a day before the 
chapter on prayer was finished and was cured by the 
rest of the book. The mother was cured also. 

33. P. 639: Stomach-trouble healed. 

34. P. 640: Freed from many years of suffering. 
Stomach-trouble, which defied three good doctors and 
patent medicines; bladder trouble; rheumatism; grip; 
cataract on both eyes, and corns. Every remedy 
“heard of ” and specialists failed. 

35. P. 641: Relief from intense suffering. Danger- 
ous kidney disease that no medicine could help. 


828 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


36. P. 642: Grateful for many blessings. Many 
physical troubles. 

37. P. 643: Grateful for moral and spiritual awaken- 
ing. Cured of drinking, smoking and tendency to 
dishonesty. 

38. P. 645: Hereditary disease of the lungs cured. 
Hereditary lung trouble; stomach trouble; ovarian 
trouble; eye trouble certain to end in blindness, 

39. P. 646: Text-book appreciated. After inter- 
viewing representatives of “‘ over sixty per cent. of the 
nations of the earth, under their own vine and fig- 
tree, states ‘what my eyes have seen and my ears 
heard.’ ” 

40. P. 647: Rupture and other serious ills healed. 
Rupture; inflammatory rheumatism; catarrh; corns 
and bunions. 

41. P. 648: Mother and daughter healed. Medicine 
every day for twenty years for constipation. Treated 
by doctors and specialists, osteopathy and magnetic 
treatments, change of climate and operation. 

42. P. 649: Liver complaint healed. Liver spots all 
over the body. ‘Treated by numerous doctors for two 
years. Cured when half way through Science and 
Health. 

43. P. 650: A convincing investigation. Fear of 
suffering maternally inherited. 

44, P. 652: Deafness and dropsy healed. Deafness; 
dropsy and consumption. 

45. P. 653: Grateful for many blessings. Head- 
ache; weakened internal organs; atheism and measles 
in one day. 

46. P. 655: A joyful experience. Chronic stomach- 
trouble; severe eye trouble; painful rupture. 

47. P. 655: An ever-present help. Painful eye 


THE “CURES ” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3829 


trouble vainly treated by specialists; catarrh, tobacco 
heart; liquor heart. 

48. P. 657: Severe eye trouble overcome. Need of 
glasses unrelieved by specialists; certain blindness 
impending. 

49. P. 658: A testimony from Ireland. Rheuma- 
tism; debility; chronic constipation; astigmatism. 

50. P. 659: The text-book makes operation un- 
necessary. Headaches and stomach trouble. 

51. P. 660: Kidney disease and eye trouble healed. 

52. P. 661: Disease of bowels healed. Painful dis- 
ease which physicians failed to “ diagnose.” 

53. P. 662: Healed by reading the text-book. Kid- 
ney disease pronounced incurable by specialists. Need 
of glasses. 

54. P. 662: A testimony from Scotland. Rheuma- 
tism pronounced incurable by the doctors; colds and 
weak chest; bilious attacks. 

55. P. 664: Curing better than enduring. Weak 
lungs; treated and given up by ten doctors in five 
states; three doctors diagnosed paralysis of the bow- 
els; constipation. Lungs now sound; bowels normally 
active. 

56. P. 665: Severe eczema destroyed. Eczema all 
over the body; given up by five doctors. 

57. P. 666: Science and Health a priceless boon. 
Paralysis of the bowels which various doctors said 
was incurable; malignant yellow fever; need of 
glasses. 

58. P. 666: A critic convinced. A disease since 
childhood for which there was no known remedy. 

59. P. 667: Born again. Cured of self-conceit; 
egotism; selfishness. 

60. P. 669: Restless sense of existence destroyed. 


38830 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Ulceration of the stomach; agnosticism; doctor said 
could live but a short time. 

61. P. 670: Morally and physically healed. Rheu- 
matism of mother; weak eyes; need of glasses; con- 
genital disease; profanity; temper; tobacco habit; 
malice, revenge, etc. | 

62. P. 672: Health and understanding gained. Con- 
genital invalidism. 

63. P. 673: An ever-present help found. Fracture 
of the jaw; chronic and malignant diarrhcea; deafness. 

64. P. 675: Many physical and mental troubles 
overcome. Tuberculosis of the face pronounced 
incurable. 

65. P. 676: A new life gained. Tobacco and liquor- 
habits cured. 

66. P. 677: A voice from England. Dyspepsia; 
congestion of the liver; weak eyesight; need of 
glasses. 

67. P. 678: Depraved appetites overcome. ‘Tobacco 
and liquor habits; profanity; stomach trouble; bad 
temper; avarice. 

68. P. 679: Catarrh of stomach healed. Cigarette 
habit; cramps in the stomach. 

69. P. 681: Spinal disease healed. So-called incur- 
able spinal disease of ten years’ standing. 

70. P. 682: Many troubles overcome. Organic 
trouble unrelieved by a specialist; blurred eyesight; 
fatigue. 

71. P. 683: Prejudice overcome. Stomach trouble; 
inward weakness; bilious attacks. 

72. P. 684: A convincing testimony. Constipation 
with convulsions in a baby; croup; whooping cough; 
tonsillitis. 

73. P. 686: MHealed physically and_ spiritually. 


THE “CURES ” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 331 


Cured of quick consumption during sleep; need of 
glasses; constipation; dyspepsia; neuralgia. 

74. P. 688: A voice from the South. A disease 
called incurable by all physicians. 

75. P. 688: Healed after much suffering. Dyspep- 
sia; nervous debility. 

76. P. 690: Through great tribulations. Spinal 
trouble; insomnia. 

77. P. 691: A helpful testimony. Colds; suffering; 
coughing; consumption. 

78. P. 693: Desire for liquor and tobacco dis- 
appeared. 

79. P. 694: An expression of loving gratitude. Has 
seen “‘ nearly every so-called incurable disease healed.” 

80. P. 695: Healed of Bright’s disease. Three doc- 
tors said: “I would not live a year or would be men- 
tally unbalanced.” 

81. P. 696: Fibroid tumour destroyed. Chronic 
sore throat; hay fever. 

82. P. 697: Light out of darkness. Chronic catarrh; 
laryngitis. 

83. P. 698: A grateful testimony. ‘I was a wreck, 
physically, mentally and financially. 

84. P. 699: Healed of consumption and asthma. 

What has scientific medicine to say as to the possi- 
bility of recovery from the diseases here enumerated? 
The answer is forthcoming without hesitation. A 
symptomatic recovery is possible, assuming every diag- 
nosis to be correct, and further, recovery is possible 
without any treatment whatsoever. 

Spontaneous cure of cancer in rare instances doubt- 
less does occur, but such a favourable outcome is not 
reasonably to be expected without appropriate and 
timely treatment. Spontaneous recovery from pul- 


832 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


monary tuberculosis is extremely common. Valvular 
heart disease and Bright’s disease of the kidneys, while 
not recovered from in the sense that the destroyed tis- 
sues are perfectly restored, patients with either, or 
even both of these diseases can, and oftentimes do live 
to ripe old age. 

Thousands of women, especially those of the col- 
oured race, carry uterine fibroids about in blissful igno- 
rance that any such tumours exist. After middle life 
these tumours may shrink and practically disappear. 

What of epilepsy? Julius Cesar and Napoleon 
Bonaparte were epileptics, and neither died of epilepsy, 
nor does history record that they were saved by Chris- 
tian Science. 

What of fractures? Fractures without displacement 
heal rapidly. The “ fracture” of the humerus in this 
list was claimed to have been cured in the first ten 
minutes after it occurred and with a loss of only thirty 
minutes from work, all told. Such a fracture could 
only have been an incomplete fracture. Moreover, 
what the doctor who “ experimented ” with an X-ray 
machine is reported to have seen in this case is no con- 
firmation of a fracture—a “ slight thickening.” This 
testimony was written at a time when X-ray was in its 
infancy. Maintaining the fragments in correct ana- 
tomical position while healing takes place is the proper 
treatment of fractures. When this is not done, deform- 
ity, vicious union or non-union occurs. A bad result 
after fracture is so painfully apparent to the most 
casual observer, and such a knock-out to the preten- 
sions of Christian Science that our ‘“ Leader” was 
shrewd enough to incorporate in her “ little book ” the 
following: ‘‘ Until the advancing age admits the efficacy 
and supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian 


THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 333 


Scientists to leave surgery and the adjustment of 
broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of a sur- 
geon.” (401-27) Yes, indeed, Mary, much better! 

Rheumatism is a self-limited disorder. Rheumatism 
today is not the rheumatism of a generation ago, when 
this testimony was penned. The first testimony of 
Fruitage gives a fairly good clinical picture of arithritis 
deformans, a chronic trouble that not infrequently will 
arrest itself and remain stationary for long periods of 
time—certainly long enough to get a testimonial into 
the mail. 

The ‘eye-troubles”’ healed, seem to have been 
largely the wearing of glasses. Cataracts are named, 
but not once is the diagnosis justified by what is re- 
lated in the “‘ testimony.” It is a matter of common 
knowledge that a good share of the glasses now being 
worn could be laid aside without greatly impairing the 
vision of those who thus adorn the face. However, do 
Christian Scientists still repudiate glasses, or do they 
“ fudge a little’ on this point as on dentistry? 

“Spinal trouble” is a favourite expression with 
those who enjoy poor health. Spinal cord disease 
might mean locomotor ataxia. One of the diseases 
Christian Science loves to “‘ cure” is this one, because 
it is reputed to be incurable. The disease becomes 
arrested at any stage for long periods of time, and 
even undergoes symptomatic improvement. Locomotor 
ataxia is regarded as a sequence of syphilis; and one 
more saving clause in ‘“‘ Christian Science Practice ” 
permitting the faithful to leave the “ spirochete pal- 
lida” to “606” and mercury, might save the face of 
Christian Science yet a little longer from inevitable 
impending innocuous desuetude. 

Hunchbacks, the living evidence of cured tubercu- 


834 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


losis of the bones of the spinal column, are familiar 
figures everywhere. 

What is to be said of “consumption in its last 
stages,’ and when “ one lung is entirely gone”? Ask 
any physician. A physician is called to ‘“ diagnose the 
case,” in order to qualify him to sign the death cer- 
tificate, else this little detail is attended to by the 
Coroner. This matter will be taken up again a little 
farther on. 

“ Catarrh ” is, or was, quackery’s best paying diag- 
nosis. The person who escaped a “ touch of” catarrh 
at one time or another was a medical curiosity in the 
closing days of the last century. “ Catarrh,” literally 
a flowing, is a term that can be applied to any degree 
of over-activity of any mucous membrane. Thus we 
see catarrh of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, throat, lungs, 
stomach, bowels, bladder, kidneys; in fact, most of the 
organs of which a Christian Scientist has none. Ca- 
tarrh of the stomach is possible only to those who have 
intestinal viscera; likewise such persons are anatom- 
ically barred from writing an acceptable Christian 
Science ‘ testimonial.” 

Hernia or rupture, is an extremely common condi- 
tion. In the United States and its insular possessions, 
there are fully 5,000,000 people suffering from rupture 
in some form. Spontaneous cure in infancy is of fre- 
quent occurrence. Recovery without treatment occurs 
less frequently with advancing age, though the condi- 
tion may disappear for long periods of time, only to 
reappear. Surgery cures well above ninety per cent. 
of all cases subjected to operation. With these facts 
in mind, the reader can readily interpret an occasional 
cure of hernia when claimed for any form of treatment, 
and for no treatment, as in Christian Science. 


THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 335 


Asthma, like dropsy, does not mean a great deal 
when used by laymen to describe illness. 

Spasmodic croup in children is terrifying to a young 
mother, as are indeed many other not well understood 
conditions. Every physician knows that a hurried call 
in the middle of the night to a case of croup must be 
responded to promptly, or the patient will be well again 
before he arrives. 

Constipation, generally a stupid and unnecessary 
habit, heads the list in frequency among the miraculous 
cures of Christian Science. This complaint keeps di- 
vine science fairly busy through the dull season in 
the healing business. ‘The condition is not in itself 
startling, but its “instantaneous” cure might easily 
become so. 

It will be rightly seen that Fruitage at full face value 
is far from convincing proof that Christian Science does 
any better than the “ordinary ”’ doctor whom Mrs. 
Eddy so roundly berates. 

If due allowance is made for such mistakes as are 
inevitable when laymen undertake the diagnosis of 
their own ailments, Christian Science at once appears 
at its true value as a system of healing, namely, the 
value of the powers of resistance to disease which the 
body naturally possesses. Again, if allowance is made 
for the part that physicians probably played in the 
management of many of the cases in the above list, and 
for the misrepresentation of what the “ best” physi- 
cians and great “specialists” really did say of the 
cases reported “ given up,” Fruitage loses all right to 
be called ‘‘ evidence ”’ and sinks to its proper level— 
that of a collection of carefully edited patent nostrum 
testimonials. 

In the one hundred pages of Fruitage not a single 


886 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


failure is recorded. If Christian Science is of divine 
origin, the last copyrighted word in healing—of course, 
there can be no failures to record. Scientific medicine 
makes no pretense to infallibility. By publishing its 
failures really scientific workers endeavour to make 
their failures stepping stones to success. If Christian 
Science is what it claims to be, it cannot fail. No 
amount of “metaphysical” floundering can explain 
failure in a single case. If a lung can be restored when 
it is wholly gone, a leg can be restored after it has been 
amputated. The average person recognises the fact 
that the lung is inside the body and out of reach of his 
eyesight, while legs in these respects are different, 
hence “ curing” the lungs, liver or kidneys, or pre- 
venting inflammation is much safer practice than 
demonstrating instantaneous cure of baldness. Much 
ado is made over healing the need of glasses, but not 
a word about the itch and head lice. Is the reader of 
Science and Health to infer that Christian Science re- 
fuses such cases? Perhaps the danger of making a 
diagnosis prevents the recording of some of the cures. 
Surgeons set the day and hour for their operative 
treatment of the diseased conditions, which they at- 
tempt to cure. Since there are no failures in Christian 
Science, there should be no difficulty in arranging a 
time and place for the instantaneous healing of cases 
of cleft palate and harelip, restoring amputated legs, 
growing new fingers, thinking tails back on for a flock 
of sheep, and restoring ordinary truth and veracity to 
a Christian Scientist who has attained to the third 
degree of imbecility, known in “ scientific” parlance 
as “understanding.” Ordinary doctors would like to 
attend such a clinic. The owners of a copyrighted 
system of divine healing are overlooking a wonderful 


THE “CURES” OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 837 


opportunity to crush out all competition in the business 
of treating human ailments, by refusing some such 
demonstration as is here suggested. 

Mrs. Eddy appears to challenge all doctors and says: 
“On this basis Christian Science will have a fair fight.” 
(page vill, 1-15.) But before she “ passed on,” a foot- 
note on page xii announced——“ The author takes no 
patients, and declines medical consultation.” This 
footnote does not appear in the latest edition. 

It is perhaps a matter of supererogation to comment 
on why Christian Scientists will not tolerate investiga- 
tion of their “‘ science”’ by outsiders, even though the 
only conditions be real disease and real cure. A post 
mortem is particularly dreaded by all Christian Science 
dealers. 

Since Christian Science is a trade name for a money- 
making business, that of treating human ailments, and 
the directors of this business have demonstrated that 
they possess great business acumen, the conclusion is 
justified that the directors of this healing business do 
not believe that a frank and open disclosure of methods 
and end results is commercially advisable, 


IV 
THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


F Christian Science is divine, it cannot fail. The 
I diseases pronounced incurable by medical men 
must, without exception, yield to omnipotence. 
God in defeat is not comprehensible. A system of 
healing that succeeds less than all the time is certainly 
not “ divine.” Science and Health records no failures. 
There are no Christian Science testimonials of Chris- 
tian Science failures. A Christian Scientist in confess- 
ing the failure of his system of healing would, by that 
overt act, excommunicate himself. It is useless to look 
to the advocates and adherents of Eddyism for confes- 
sions of failure of this ‘‘ system of mind healing.” Such 
confessions would betray common sense and common 
honesty, and in matters of sickness no consistent Chris- 
tian Scientist displays any such attributes. However, 
Christian Scientists do die. Mary Baker Patterson 
Glover Eddy died and remains too dead to use her 
telephone. The members of the families of Christian 
Science practitioners die, as do the practitioners them- 
selves; and so far, they all stay dead. The patients of 
these “‘ Mind ” doctors die and they all require burial 
services that are ‘“ perfectly lovely.” On the trail of 
every Christian Scientist is death. Christian Science is 
not divine. It is a bogus healing system that fails all 
the time. Its so-called successes are misunderstanding 
or misrepresentation—usually both. 
The medical profession is constantly called upon to 


338 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 339 


treat Christian Science healers, and when these hypo- 
crites recover through medical or surgical measures, 
they invariably ascribe their healing to mental treat- 
ment, and at once resume their gainful occupation— 
that of practicing medicine without a license. A Chris- 
tian Science healer has use for the services of a physi- 
cion when he himself is sick, and when in need of a 
fence between his nefarious business and the coroner. 
Instead of abolishing “sickness, sin, and death,” 
Christian Science makes very substantial contribution 
to all three. 

Through medical channels request was made for the 
details of such cases as might reasonably be expected 
to recover under timely and proper treatment, but 
which through reliance upon Christian Science, resulted 
unfavourably. Physicians in all parts of the United 
States responded. The request for this information 
carried with it the promise that names would not be 
made public, and that these case reports be written in 
simple language free from technical terms. Al! but 
two of these case reports are from physicians. 

The identity of the patient in one case will, of course, 
be surmised by every reader of this book. There is 
not space for all of the case reports received. Some 
of the worst and most revolting are omitted. Similar 
examples of Christian Science failures can be found in 
almost every community in this country. The reader 
is requested to discuss these cases with any competent 
physician. In this way, a better understanding can be 
had of the crime of Christian Science. 

These accounts of the failures of Christian Science 
are not open to dispute as to results. No metaphysical 
antics can make successful claim to “ healing” a dis- 
ease that killed the patient. Death and recovery do 


840 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


not lie in the same direction. Those who die in Chris- 
tian Science surely do not illustrate any efficacy of this 
method of treating human ailments. 

The names of the Christian Science practitioners 
who are involved in the cases here reported, and who 
have paid five dollars a line to advertise the fact that 
they have been approved by the Board of Directors of 
the Mother Church, are withheld from publication, as 
these failures are the failures of this system of Mind 
healing, and not the failures of individuals. 

Graven on the walls of the Mother Church in Boston 
are the following words from Science and Health: “ If 
the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, 
the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and 
the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like 
dew before the morning sunshine.” (365-15, 19) On 
the same page of this self-same book Mrs. Eddy can 
again be quoted in the following words: ‘‘ If hypocrisy, 
stolidity, inhumanity, or vice finds its way into the 
chambers of disease through the would-be healer, it 
would, if it were possible, convert into a den of thieves 
the temple of the Holy Ghost.” (365-25, 19) 

If Christian Science were of divine origin, what 
Mrs. Eddy says of ‘one visit”? healing would occur 
every time. The reader is invited to make his own 
application of the second quotation from this 
** Mother-God.” 

These accounts of Christian Science failures from 
everyday life speak volumes to those who have the 
understanding of experience. The picture of little 
Esther, dying of pneumonia, forced to keep up and 
about, begging for a moment’s respite from exhaustion 
in mother’s lap, and repulsed with “ Run along and 
play with sister,” will bring home to every normal 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 341 


mother the feeling that this parent was obsessed by 
something strangely, brutally inhuman. ‘The reader 
who gives thoughtful consideration to the accounts 
of failure filling the pages which here follow will 
know that the trail of this modern sorcery is marked 
by the slaughter of innocents. Here and there a 
touch of comedy appears; but, for the most part, 
these cases are tragedy—useless, cruel waste of 
human life. 


Cancer of the Breast—Fatal. 


A woman, aged 42, the mother of three children, in 
age ranging from about eleven down to three, gave the 
following history: In June, 1920, she noticed a lump in 
her left breast which, continuing to increase in size, 
led her, in August, two months later, to consult Drs. 
T. and H., who made a diagnosis of probable malig- 
nancy. The patient’s sister, an adherent of the Chris- 
tian Science faith, persuaded her to rely on Christian 
Science rather than follow the advice of the physicians, 
who urged operation. Accordingly, the patient, buoyed 
up by the promise of certain cure without operation, 
began taking treatments of a practitioner named 
Mrs. H. 

The patient visited the practitioner once a week to 
receive treatment, and incidentally to make payment of 
the weekly charge of five dollars. During the rest of 
the week absent treatments were given. These treat- 
ments were continued until the patient was too weak 
to visit the practitioner, who lived a dozen miles 
away. Furthermore, the practitioner requested the 
patient to take treatment from some one else, as 
mortal mind was interfering with the case and she 
could do no more. 


842 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Conditions becoming alarming, the husband insisted 
on calling in a surgeon. On February 14, 1923, I was 
called to the home to “‘ arrange for the operation ” pre- 
viously advised by Drs. T. and H. Upon entering the 
room where the patient lay reclining on a couch, she 
arose and literally staggered as she advanced to greet 
me. I shall never forget the picture presented in this 
poor woman’s home—poor in a double sense. The 
patient, yellow as a lemon, so short of breath that her 
voice was scarcely audible, said that she thought every- 
thing was coming along all right, but to please her hus- 
band she had decided to withdraw her opposition to 
surgical treatment, and wished me to make the neces- 
sary arrangements for immediate operation. 

A brief examination showed an emaciated woman, 
who appeared many years older than the age given. 
Her skin was intensely jaundiced from secondary can- 
cerous involvement of the liver, and it was evident that 
dissolution was near at hand. In reply to the patient’s 
question as to how soon she could have the operation, 
I replied that I did not advise operation. 

In the adjoining room the older of the little children, 
a girl of perhaps ten or eleven, was attempting to pre- 
pare a belated breakfast for the three little ones. On 
every hand was evidence that the mother had been 
compelled to give up her household duties. As I looked 
upon this little family, my professional side gave place 
to that of the father, for I have little ones of my own. 
The impending tragedy about to destroy the happiness 
of this humble home and to despoil this little group of 
the mother’s guiding hand, to me was a situation most 
tragic. I asked the husband and father to step outside 
in order that I might tell him privately that an oper- 
ation would be worse than useless. The poor woman’s 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 348 


suffering lasted just two weeks longer, when she 
“passed on,” as her sister informed me—the same 
sister whose pernicious advice was responsible for this 
untimely death. 


Diphtheria—No Antitoxin—Death. 


Several years ago, a woman came to my office and 
asked me to accompany her to a little cottage in the 
neighbourhood. We were met by the father and 
mother of a little girl whom I was asked to examine. 
The little patient, ten or eleven years of age, presented 
a strikingly beautiful picture as she lay in her little bed 
with her hair fallen in tangled golden ringlets over her 
shoulders and upon her pillow. As I approached the 
bed, I could see that she was not breathing, and on 
closer examination, found she was dead. 

I informed the parents that the child was dead, 
whereupon they contradicted me, saying: ‘ She is not 
dead, but has passed on.”” I asked why they had sent 
for me, and they replied: ‘‘ Only to conform to the rules 
of the Health Department which require a death 
certificate.” | 

They said that they knew that the child was not 
dead; that the Lord had called the child home where 
they would meet her in the future as the child they 
loved and where she would always be a child to them. 

There was not a tear in the eyes of either parent. I 
asked them what the child had been complaining of, 
and how long she had been sick. They replied that 
she had not been sick at all, but in her childish igno- 
rance and innocence, she thought that she had a sore 
throat for almost a week. 

I asked them to give me a spoon with which to de- 
press the tongue so that I could examine the throat. 


844 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


This they did, and, as I expected, I found a diph- 
theritic membrane covering the tonsils, pharynx, and 
palate. 

I told them that the child had died of diphtheria, and 
could have been saved by a single dose of antitoxin, 
had they called a doctor a few days before. This they 
disputed; and they seemed perfectly satisfied that the 
child had “ passed on.” 

I refused to sign the death certificate, and made this 
a coroner’s case, where it stands as a matter of record 
in the coroner’s office in this city. 


Mental Obstetrics—Fatal Postpartum Hemorrhage. 


My attention is attracted to your study of the ques- 
tion of the dangers of relying on Christian Science in 
cases of serious disease. I am sending you an account 
of my worst case. 

The subject of this sketch of Christian Science mal- 
practice was a Mrs. B., a strong, rugged woman, 
already the mother of two healthy children. I had 
seen this woman about town frequently and was aware 
that the number of children in her household was soon 
to be augmented. I also knew the family to be Chris- 
tian Scientists. At four o’clock one morning, this 
woman’s husband called me to come down quickly and 
bring instruments. 

I hastened to the “ B.” residence and was met at the 
door by a woman in nurse’s costume, who conducted 
me to the bed chamber. Mrs. B. stated that she was 
feeling “all right”? and that nothing had happened. 
Her appearance belied her assertions. Her face was 
ghostly white and she was pulseless at the wrist. A 
baby had been born, but the room and bed were clean 
and tidy and betrayed no visible sign of any untoward 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 345 


condition. The patient, however, was exsanguinated. It 
was perfectly evident that she had suffered a dangerous, 
if not fatal hemorrhage. She was no longer bleeding; 
she no longer had blood enough to sustain hemorrhage. 

Seeing death written in her face, I summoned Dr. 
R., living two blocks away, and while he was coming, 
I hastened to the hospital, a distance of one block, for 
a blood transfusion outfit. Dr. R. answered my urgent 
call for assistance so promptly that I found him wait- 
ing when I returned to the house. The patient was 
already dead upon Dr. R.’s arrival. The husband and 
the nurse both denied that there had been any hemor- 
rhage, but Dr. R. and myself could not credit their 
statements, and agreed that the woman came to her 
death through loss of blood. Later, the patient’s aunt, 
who is not “in science,” divulged the fact that the 
husband, before calling for help, had burned the blood- 
soaked bedding, and that there had been enough of it 
to fill the furnace a second time. 

I refused to sign a death certificate. The husband, 
backed up by an attorney, endeavoured to coerce me 
into sparing the family and the Christian Scientists 
the odium of a coroner’s inquest. In spite of their 
cajolery and their threats, I stood my ground. I told 
them that they were this woman’s executioners, that 
in this day and age, with so many safeguards available 
to avert disaster on occasions like this, it grieved me 
greatly to witness the taking of human life through 
such crass ignorance, and that I greatly regretted that 
the little hurt to their business incidental to a coroner’s 
inquest was all that a criminally inadequate law could 
do. The coroner held his inquest, and furnished the 
certificate, assigning as the cause of death, “ post- 
partum hemorrhage.” 


846 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Diphtheria—Untreated—Fatal. 


I am hoping that the following case report may be 
used to discourage withholding proper treatment from 
children suffering from diphtheria, that dread disease 
so fatal in early childhood. 

A little girl, one of four bright children that made up 
the family of a Christian Scientist living in our little 
city, was taken sick with sore throat. The little 
sufferer was given very little consideration and scant 
heed was paid to her complaint of pain on swallowing. 
Christian Science treatment, whatever that may be, 
was administered by the parents at first. However, as 
the child seemed to be getting worse instead of better, 
a regular Christian Science practitioner was employed, 
but her treatment was equally unavailing. Conditions 
becoming worse and worse, a practitioner of reputed 
greater power was summoned from a nearby city, who 
gave absent treatment from the “ big city.” The result 
was the same, the little patient continued to grow worse 
and slowly choked to death. I have known a number 
of instances where Christian Science proved useless, 
but do not recall any others so tragic as this. 


Tuberculosis—H emorrhage—Death. 


Last August I received a call to Mr. K.’s house, and 
found that he had suffered a severe hemorrhage from 
the lungs. I had previously examined his sputum and 
found tubercle bacilli. The young man was rejected 
in the draft. A year ago he started a bakery and was 
the chief baker. From the standpoint of the public 
this was an unsanitary proposition. He worked long 
hours and his vital strength was greatly diminished. 

The last time I saw this young man alive was on the 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 347 


eighth day of September. At that time he expressed a 
strong desire to get back to his business. I told him 
that such a thing was extremely inadvisable. The time 
set for him to remain quiet in bed was from six to nine 
weeks from the date of his hemorrhage. It was plain 
to me that my advice was contrary to the wishes of the 
patient. The next day a Christian Science practitioner 
was called. The patient was promptly told that there 
was not the least danger in getting out of bed and 
attending to his business at once. Three days later, I 
was called to the telephone by a local undertaker, who 
asked me to sign a death certificate for Mr. K. The 
undertaker informed me that a Christian Science prac- 
titioner had been installed as adviser to the patient and 
had advised the patient to get up and around without 
fear of any consequences. ‘The patient had followed 
the practitioner’s advice. ‘The exertion of getting up 
had brought on an alarming hemorrhage which ended 
in the patient’s death within a few minutes. I signed 
the death certificate. The name of the miserable 
fanatic who treated my hemoptysis case to death is car- 
ried on the list of those given approval by the Christian 
Science officials as published in The Christian Science 
Journal. 


Uterine Fibroid. 

The patient had been under Christian Science treat- 
ment for three years. Her complaint had been of uter- 
ine hemorrhage, which recently had grown much worse. 
Realising that her strength was ebbing away despite 
the assurance of the Christian Science practitioner that 
everything was all harmonious and that Christian 
Science always healed the fear of disease in cases like 
hers, the patient, overruling her husband’s wishes, 


848 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


called in a physician. A diagnosis of uterine fibroid 
with pelvic sepsis was made, and the patient sent to the 
hospital for operation. 

The patient was as “ white as a ghost” and very 
weak from loss of blood, and from the effects of the 
septic infection. The hemoglobin value was only thirty 
per cent. Operation was the patient’s only chance, so 
the tumour was surgically removed and drainage es- 
tablished. On account of the great anemia and the 
complication of sepsis, an unfavourable result was 
feared, but she managed to pull through. 

Her recovery marked the close of the reign of Chris- 
tian Science in this household. This woman, at this 
writing, January, 1924, is in robust health, but still 
shudders when she allows herself to think how nearly 
her dependent children came to losing their mother 
through their father’s addiction to Christian Science. 


cc 


Pneumonia in a Child. 


Just twenty years ago we lived next door to a family 
of Christian Scientists. The husband and father had 
recently died of typhoid fever, leaving a family of chil- 
dren, the younger ones being Janet, aged three, and 
Esther, who was five. Late in the fall, Esther was 
taken sick with a severe cold. She drooped about the 
house, coughed, and complained of a pain in her side. 

A Christian Science practitioner was employed—a 
Mrs. B., who came to the house every day to give 
treatments. The healer would sit in the presence of 
the child and quote from Science and Health. Many 
times she would repeat: “I can see your father now, 
he was about to embrace Christian Science just before 
he passed on, and had he done so, he would be with his 
little girl today.”” Esther was encouraged, and wishing 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 349 


to please her mother, frequently asserted that she was 
not sick. I asked the mother why she did not put 
some oil on the little lips and nose, as they were so 
sore and angry-looking. The mother replied, “I am 
afraid that God would desert us if I used a material 
remedy.” I told her that I read and followed the 
Bible, too, and that the Saviour anointed with oil. She 
said, ‘‘ I wish I had your faith, but I’m afraid.” The 
little child was trying to appear well. While I was 
calling, she stood in the open doorway in the chill wind 
and coughed so that it made my heart bleed to look at 
her. After a few minutes, little Esther came to her 
mother’s side and, half whispering, said, ‘‘ I feel better, 
mamma, won’t you let me sit in your lap a little while?” 
The mother said, “ Run along, dear, and play with 
baby sister, I am talking to Mrs. C.” 

The following day, an older brother came into our 
yard. I asked him about Esther. He said that the 
lady healer was in the house then and that he had just 
overheard her tell his mother that Esther was doing 
fine, that the only thing to fear now was the opposition 
of the neighbours. The boy’s quivering chin, his wor- 
ried and anxious look, told me a different story. He 
came on into the house. I encouraged him to get their 
former family physician, who had always called Esther 
his ‘“ best little girl.” Upon entering the house the 
mother, in great surprise, said, ““ Who sent for you? ” 
His answer was, “ Where’s Esther?” and strode up- 
stairs. In a little while he came down again looking 
very serious. He said to the disturbed mother, 
‘‘ Esther has pneumonia; she is nearing the crisis, and 
I’m afraid my ‘ best little girl’ is slipping away.” 

The doctor refused to leave the house. Toward mid- 
night the little sufferer seemed easier, but oh, so pale. 


350 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Calling feebly to her doctor friend, who was already as 
close to her bed as he could get, she said, “ ’'m going 
to sleep now, Doctor, good night, Ill see you in the 
morning.” But for little Esther the morning came that 
night. This tragedy so affected the mother that she 
made me a sort of health guardian for the baby, and 
ever afterward, when Janet seemed indisposed, she 
was sent to me. 


Cancer of the Breast—Operation Delayed. 


About two years ago I had referred to me a middle- 
aged woman who came to see about a lump in her 
breast which had been pronounced suspicious by the 
family physician. My examination showed a tumour 
of the right breast and another large growth in the arm 
pit. This last named growth was as large as a goose 
egg and upon my inquiring how long the family doctor 
had been watching this tumour grow, the patient re- 
plied: “ To tell the truth, our home doctor did not see 
this lump until yesterday. We are Christian Scientists 
now and have not consulted any doctor for several 
years. 

I advised immediate operation and remarked that we 
would make the best of a serious situation. The pa- 
tient, now thoroughly alarmed, was eager for prompt 
surgical intervention. A radical operation was done. 
A recurrence has been operated upon, X-ray is being 
used with a powerful machine, but I do not feel 
very hopeful of the outcome. I am aware that my 
concern for the welfare of this patient will be con- 
demned by Christian Scientists as harmful to the 
patient’s chance of recovery. But I entertain no such 
foolish notion. This same solicitude for my patient’s 
welfare has led me many, many times to insist upon 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 351 


early operation in similar cases and with most gratify- 
ing results. 


Christian Science and Insanity. 

During twelve years of service as Superintendent of 
a State Hospital for the Insane, we have had numerous 
instances wherein insanity and Christian Science have 
been so blended that it was hard to draw the dividing 
line between the two, if there be any such dividing line 
that can be drawn. 

Of course, from a psychiatric standpoint, Christian 
Science is nothing more nor less than a delusion, and 
a delusion is one of the many symptoms of mental 
disturbance. 


Uterine Fibroid—Insanity. 


A woman, the wife of a grocer and the mother of 
three children, at the age of forty, developed a uterine 
tumour. She likewise suffered the inconvenience and 
the unfavourable influence upon her health that so fre- 
quently come from decayed teeth. Both her uncle, 
who is a physician, and myself insisted on dental and 
surgical treatment for her various ailments. At times, 
her condition occasioned grave concern on account of 
the severe hemorrhages which she suffered. 

She was visited by members of the Christian Science 
sect, who are always to be found on the lookout for 
business, and she fell for their unbounded promises of 
complete restoration to “harmony.” She suffered an 
attack of influenza. The practitioners and a Christian 
Science nurse were given full charge of the case. The 
husband, becoming alarmed, ousted the pretenders, and 
secured real doctors and nurses. Physically, she recov- 
ered, but mentally she never came back. She has fixed 


352 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


delusions and the outlook for her recovery is very un- 
certain. I am convinced that had this woman had 
timely dental and surgical attention and had escaped 
the Christian Science hounding that was forced upon 
her, she would today be in sound health. On the con- 
trary, she is confined in a sanitarium, away from her 
family and with very little prospect of regaining her 
reason. There is no insanity in her family, no 
“science,” no delusions or other evidence of mental 
aberration. 


Insanity—Following Disastrous Results of Christian 
Science Practice. 


One of the most consistent and ardent followers of 
the teachings of the much-married Mary Baker Eddy 
formerly lived in my home town. This misguided 
woman of the sublime faith in Mother Eddy witnessed 
the sacrifice of one of her children through untreated 
diphtheria. ‘Then followed the loss of a son, who de- 
parted this life through a fear of pneumonia. A 
daughter got married and the son-in-law developed a 
fatal infection of the hand. 

Her husband, co-believer in the wholeness of the all 
and the allness of the whole, fell into the hands of the 
surgeons and persisted in relapsing into error with most 
annoying regularity. This series of disasters unhinged 
what little mental equipment she had left which, by the 
Way, was no great amount in the beginning, and she 
became a nuisance to the community. She is now a 
patient in the State Hospital for the Insane at P : 
where her surroundings are at last harmonious and the 
atmosphere of lunacy uncontaminated with reason or 
common sense. 

She now enjoys the companionship of many a Mrs. 





THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 358 


Eddy who believes herself God, and can hold converse 
with those who speak with the authority of angels and 
enjoy the consciousness of being co-equal with Jesus. 
What a haven for a third degree Christian Scientist! 


Benign Tumour—Suicide Attempted. 


Your letter in the Indiana Journal comes to my desk 
just at the time of an experience that is apropos. 

A young lady, twenty-two years of age, a virtuous 
girl of an estimable family, was brought to the hospital 
with a self-inflicted gunshot wound of the head. Dr. 
J. S. is the surgeon in the case, and I administered the 
anesthetic. ‘The patient was in considerable shock, 
but fortunately the bullet, which entered at the right 
temple, ranged forward and was lodged just behind the 
frontal sinus. It was removed, and she made a good 
recovery. For a number of days she refused to give 
any reason for her attempt on her life. Before leaving 
the hospital, however, she finally divulged to Dr. S. the 
fact that over a year ago she had noticed a small, pain- 
ful tumour near the urethral orifice. 

Following the misleading dictates of her modesty, 
she decided not to consult her family physician, but to 
go to a lady science reader whom she happened to 
know. This practitioner told her that the growth was 
what doctors called cancer, but that she could cure it 
after a number of readings. The young lady took the 
treatment faithfully, but continued to report to the 
reader that she was getting no better, and that the 
growth was still very painful, especially upon urination. 
A few days before the rash act of the patient, the prac- 
titioner was forced to acknowledge that she was unable 
to cure the “‘ cancer,” and that further treatment would 
be unavailing, as some one was interfering in her case. 


354 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


The poor girl was so distraught at this information that 
she attempted suicide with almost successful result. 

At the conclusion of this recital, she gave Dr. S. per- 
mission to examine her, and he, of course, discovered a 
urethral caruncle, which was removed in a very short 
time under local anesthesia. The young lady has now 
left the hospital perfectly well, but having learned, at a 
frightful cost, the effects of consulting other than a 
reputable physician. 


Strangulated Hernia—Sepsis—Peritonitis—Death. 


On April 30, 1922, a few hours before a confirmed 
Christian Scientist “‘ passed on,” I made my first pro- 
fessional visit to her bedside. It was just another 
‘“‘ same old story ’—impending need of a death certifi- 
cate. The stench of a decomposing human body in the 
house is too much for even non-smelling Christian 
Science nostrils, hence it is mandatory from Boston 
upon Christian Scientists everywhere to ‘‘ obey the 
law,” and secure a burial permit. 

Here is what I found: The patient, a woman of 
forty, lay in semi-stupour, with high fever and flutter- 
ing pulse. The odour in the house was vile beyond 
description. Steeling myself to the task, I proceeded 
to determine the cause of all this. I found the skin of 
the abdomen much thickened and very red. The same 
condition prevailed over the right hip and down the 
right thigh as far as the knee. This dark reddened 
skin was much swollen and fluctuant, while in the right 
lower abdominal area there was a black and gangren- 
ous spot two by three inches in extent. This gangren- 
ous area displayed irregular ragged openings from 
which exuded bloody fluid, gas, and fecal matter. 

During my examination, which was not unduly pro- 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 355 


longed, at least three pints of horribly-smelling gaseous 
and pus-like fecal matter escaped from the region of 
the right groin, befouling the patient’s person and the 
bed upon which she lay. The patient was in the last 
stages of sepsis and peritonitis, and she was mercifully 
released by death a few hours later. A post-mortem 
was refused; indeed, my ante-mortem examination 
made an autopsy unnecessary. 

The history of this case, as reluctantly confessed by 
the inner circle of this affair, was as follows: For about 
one year this woman had been annoyed by a “little 
hard swelling ” in the right groin. Upon lying down, 
she could, by a “ little rubbing and prayer,” cause this 
swelling to disappear. On the evening of April 17, 
1922, the swelling reappeared, but the usual recumbent 
position, rubbing and prayer failed to yield the cus- 
tomary relief. 

Two professional Christian Science practitioners 
were then employed. Armed with Science and Health, 
they administered what they were pleased to call 
“treatments ” up to the time of my visit. When I was 
sent for, one of the “ healers ” withdrew, but the other 
said that she would continue her “‘ treatments.” Be- 
fore noon of the following day, the undertaker began 
his treatment. 

This fatal case of neglected strangulated hernia, in a 
Christian Science adherent, faithful to Eddyism for 
nearly a score of years, and in a woman of superior 
intelligence in other respects, is a most tragic, a most 
cruel example of the folly of worshipping and following 
after that mental freak—Mary Baker Eddy. I trust 
that publishing the revolting details of this case may 
open the eyes of some who delude themselves into 
thinking that Christian Science does no harm. 


356 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Cancer of the Breast. 

The patient, a music teacher, aged forty-five years, 
came to me at the suggestion of Dr. R. C., who had 
known the family for many years, although he had not 
rendered any professional service for a long time. The 
patient, accompanied by an elderly woman, of appar- 
ently seventy years of age, whom she introduced as her 
mother, announced that she was convinced that there 
was nothing the matter with her, but to please her 
mother she had consulted their former family doctor, 
who expressed a desire to have me make an examina- 
tion and give him an opinion as to the advisability of 
surgical interference. 

An examination of the patient revealed a cancer of 
the left breast in an advanced stage. The tumour had 
broken down and there was a large and offensive ulcer 
over its most prominent part. The glands in the axilla 
were enormously enlarged, and the size of the left arm 
was twice that of the right. Masses of cancerous 
glands were visible along the clavicle; and there was 
embarrassed breathing from intrathoracic extension. 
The patient asserted that she was not at all concerned 
about her condition, but if I thought an operation was 
indicated, to please her dear old mother, she would 
submit to whatever I thought best to do. I stated 
that, in my opinion, an operation would not do her 
any good, whereupon she turned to the mother and 
triumphantly said, “ Didn’t I tell you so?” The 
mother sensed the situation correctly and was not in 
the least comforted. 

The old family physician was called upon for his 
professional services once again in a few weeks, 
after which that dear old mother was left in the 
home alone. 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 357 


Lung Abscess—Fatal. 

Mrs. J., aged fifty, a very large fat woman, was an 
ardent Christian Scientist for many years prior to her 
death. She contracted a cold and for some time was 
troubled with a cough. She was not seen at this time 
by a competent physician and so no accurate diagnosis 
was made. She suddenly became worse, with high 
fever and difficult breathing. Her Christian Science 
healer called a quack doctor in consultation, who said 
she had pneumonia. The two fakers continued to at- 
tend for a week or two, assuring her that she was 
steadily improving. She began to expectorate a foul- 
smelling sputum and was told that this was a favour- 
able sign. Suddenly, one afternoon, while sitting up 
because of difficult breathing, she was suddenly over- 
whelmed with a gush of fetid pus. It poured from her 
nose and mouth and filled her lungs by aspiration. 
She and her husband became alarmed and sent for a 
surgeon. On his arrival he found the woman cyanotic, 
struggling for breath, drawing in pus. An abscess of the 
lung had ulcerated through into a bronchus. A hasty 
effort was made to drain the chest, but the patient died 
a horrible death, strangled in foul-smelling pus before 
preparation could be made to operate. A drainage tube 
a few days earlier would have saved her life. She died 
a victim of Christian Science and fanaticism. 


Scarlet Fever—Kidney Complication—Death. 

In the fall of 1914 I was asked, one evening, to see 
a three-year-old boy, the child of people theretofore 
strangers to me, who told me that the child had been 
refusing food and vomiting for three or four days. He 
had, that evening, become unconscious. No physician, 
it was claimed, had seen him. 


858 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


The child was characteristically desquamating about 
hands and feet and the face and limbs were markedly 
edematous. He died the following day and, although I 
reported scarlet fever and signed the death certificate 
on the same day, nobody asked any questions. I did 
not learn until afterward that both parents were 
“pious ” Eddyites. 


A Typical Letier. 


Dear Doctor: 

I have just seen your letter as it appears in the Ohio 
State Medical Journal. IY am sorry I have never kept 
full records as to all Christian Science fatalities, but a 
few cases stand out before me very prominently. 

A woman upon whom I had made a successful Czsa- 
rean section came to me a few years later with a can- 
cerous nodule in her breast, the size of the end of my 
finger. I at once advised radical operation. She re- 
turned about a year later, having been under Christian 
Science treatment in the interval. By that time the 
cancer had assumed huge proportions, and the case 
was hopeless. I operated for palliative purposes to 
render her more comfortable, but the end result was 
the same. 

I saw an elderly woman about midnight, with a 
physician who had just been called in the case. She 
was suffering with typical symptoms of intestinal ob- 
struction. She had been having these symptoms for 
several days, but had been taking Christian Science 
treatment. She was sent to the hospital and operated 
upon at once, but found a gangrenous condition of the 
bowel with rupture and the exitus was prompt. 

Only recently two prominent ladies of this city, both 
former members of the School Board, died of cancer. 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 359 


Both of them had been under Christian Science treat- 
ment, the one until her death, the other until a few 
weeks before, when she slipped over into the hands of 
the Abrams cult. 

I have had a considerable number of cases in which 
the patients switched their Christian Science treatment 
in time to be saved, but the necessary operations were 
much more serious than they would have been could 
they have been made earlier. 

When your book appears I shall ¢ertainly read it 
with much interest, and hope it will be widely circu- 
lated among the laity. 


Ovarian Cyst—Delayed O peration—Death. 


Enclosed find a photograph of a woman, who was 
living in the heart of a large American city while this 
immense ovarian cyst was forming. All the while she 
was depending on Christian Science to remove it. This 
photograph was taken after her admittance to a hos- 
pital. The tumour had been growing for three and a 
half years before her condition became so desperate 
that she was forced to seek “‘ material” relief. The 
woman was only thirty-six years of age, and previous 
to her illness her weight had never exceeded one hun- 
dred and twelve pounds. After the development of the 
tumour to its greatest size, the patient weighed two 
hundred pounds, more than half of which was tumour. 

This patient presented a shocking appearance—thin 
face, thin arms and lower limbs and such an enormous 
abdomen that when she lay in an ordinary hospital bed, 
a second bed was required alongside the first, in order 
to support the abdomen with its contained tumour. 
When this tumour had grown for eight months, it be- 
came smaller by bursting through the vagina, but 


3860 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


within a few weeks it became as large as before, and 
continued to grow, up to the date of her admission to 
the hospital. On the day before she entered the hos- 
pital she was taken with a sharp cutting pain in the 
right dorsal region, feeling as if the eighth rib had been 
broken, and on the day of admission there were similar 
pains on the left side. Previous to this time she had 
not been confined to bed. 

The patient had great difficulty in breathing and was 
in very bad condition. No attempt at a radical oper- 
ation could safely be made. Palliative aspiration was 
done during the week following admission to the hos- 
pital, but she gradually grew weaker and weaker until 
she died. 

An autopsy showed an enormous ovarian cyst with 
complicating pathology. I call this case a perpetual 
monument to the folly of trusting Christian Science in 
cases of real disease. A timely surgical operation 
would have saved this young woman’s life as thousands 
of similar cases attest. 


Infantile Paralysis. 


Inspection and quarantine resisted. One of the 
older physicians of this city asked me to call and see a 
child in the family of a Christian Scientist. The doctor 
suspected the illness to be infantile paralysis, and 
wished my opinion in the matter. 

I made the visit as requested, and was met at the 
door by the patient’s mother. In spite of my cre- 
dentials as Health Commissioner, she refused to let 
me in. She went back into the house and telephoned 
two or three times. As she still refused to admit me, I 
started for the patrol box, threatening to take her to 
the police station. I was then called back and per- 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 361 


mitted to make the necessary examination. Examina- 
tion revealed the fact that the child was suffering from 
infantile paralysis. The usual quarantine was estab- 
lished and enforced. 


Smallpox—No Quarantine for Five Days. 

R. S., a boy of sixteen, received Christian Science 
treatment for whatever ailed him for several days. The 
healer, an approved practitioner of this cult, says she 
gave only absent treatments at first, but as the boy 
continued to claim he was sick, she made a personal 
visit. At this visit the healer discovered an eruption. 
In the meahtime, the boy had been placed in the home 
of a friend of the family, a Mrs. M., also an approved 
Christian Science practitioner. This change of resi- 
dence took place on January 25, 1924. The boy, with 
the eruption on his face and body, came and went, in 
and out, of an apartment house in which six families 
lived. On January 25th, he visited two picture shows 
and mingled freely with the crowds, all the time receiv- 
ing treatment for his so-called eruption. On January 
29th, the Health Department learned of the matter, 
ascertained the boy’s ailment to be smallpox and at 
once removed him to the Isolation Hospital. 

All this occurred in a populous residence neighbour- 
hood of Chicago, and there followed numerous other 
cases of smallpox in that part of the city. There is no 
way of determining how many of them were due to this 
one. It is idle to say that Christian Scientists comply 
with the laws concerning communicable diseases—they 
cannot, and they do not. 


Vaccination Treated—lIt “ Took.” 
Three years ago we had an epidemic of smallpox. 


362 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Vaccination was ordered in the schools. Two of the 
teachers and one pupil were Christian Scientists. They 
did not refuse to be vaccinated, but asserted that they 
had prepared themselves so that it would not “ take.” 
It fell to my lot to vaccinate all three, and to inspect 
their arms to ascertain which ones had been successful. 
I was gratified to discover that, in spite of their “ pre- 
paredness,” all three had typical reactions. I can 
testify that this variety of prayer is no match for 
vaccine virus, provided it is well rubbed into a 
properly prepared area of the skin of a Christian 
Scientist. 





Pneumonia—T etanus—Lockjaw—Two Cases. 


In 1908, I was requested by the supervisors of our 
township to go and see a Miss S., who had been re- 
ported sick, and who had been under the care of 
“‘ Scientists ” for some time. I was asked to ascertain 
whether or not it would be safe and proper to remove 
her to the hospital, twenty miles away. On examina- 
tion I found a thin, frail woman, quite ill. Her pulse 
and temperature were high, and she presented the signs 
and symptoms of pneumonia, but as is not infrequently 
the case in this very fatal disease, the patient was able 
to walk about the room. ‘The treatment this case of 
pneumonia had had could well be summed up in two 
words—“ forget it.” I advised against moving the 
patient, feeling that a twenty-mile ride was out of the 
question. 

Following my report, the supervisor went out to the 
house where the patient roomed to make some arrange- 
ments for taking care of her. Upon his arrival he 
learned that the practitioners, with two other mem- 
bers of the church, had taken her away. It was 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 363 


brought out at the inquest that they had dressed her 
and made her walk five blocks in a foot of snow, and 
with the mercury in the neighbourhood of zero. 
Autopsy showed well developed lobar pneumonia in 
both lungs. | 

We have had two deaths from tetanus following nail 
wounds in the last twenty years. Both cases were 
treated by “ Scientists ”’ until the disease was well es- 
tablished, when, of course, the time for anti-tetanic 
serum to be of greatest service is past. 


Christian Science in a Hospital. 


A few cases here are getting Christian Science treat- 
ment. Brief notes concerning the cases follow: 

I. N. G., male, originally admitted in 1916, at the 
age of forty-eight. Diagnosis—paralysis-agitans. The 
patient has been gradually getting worse since admis- 
sion. A Christian Science practitioner visits him every 
two weeks. 

IJ. E. F., male, aged sixty-seven. Admitted Janu- 
ary 13, 1923. Diagnosis—tabes dorsalis (locomotor 
ataxia). Definite locomotor gait; uses wheel chair; 
has urinary incontinence. Practitioner visits him 
irregularly. 

Ill. E. Y., aged fifty-six, female. Admitted No- 
vember 2, 1922, through Department Charities. Had 
cerebral hemorrhage three years ago with resulting 
paralysis of left arm and leg. There is marked con- 
tracture of the left hand. Has practitioner weekly. 

IV. B. K., aged thirty-three, female. Admitted 
October 8, 1923. Cerebral hemorrhage in 1920, with 
paralysis of left side, arm and leg. Wassermann four 
plus. Can get about slightly. Also has interstitial 
nephritis. Practitioner weekly. 


864 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


V. E. R. W., admitted June 1, 1922, through De- 
partment of Charities. Diagnosis—chronic arthritis 
deformans. Has practitioner weekly. 

VI. V. M. W., aged thirty-nine, male. Diagnosis— 
tabes dorsalis. Wassermann four plus. Definite ataxic 
gait; gets Christian Science treatment weekly. Re- 
fused antisyphilitic treatment. About November 28, 
1923, this patient had an acute osteomyelitis of right 
index finger which suppurated. He would not come to 
the office for treatment until we threatened him with a 
prolonged stay in our psychopathic ward. The first 
joint had already suppurated out when we began to 
care for him. 

VII. J. M. F., male, aged fifty-two. Admitted July 
2, 1923. Was a committed patient sent to us by Psy- 
chopathic Court, with a diagnosis of presenile deterior- 
ation. When he arrived here we had to feed him with 
a tube and he had incontinence of both urine and 
feces. He was paroled to his daughter on August 
11, 1923, for the purpose of getting Christian Science 
treatment. He was returned to us September 11, 
1923, in very poor physical condition, and died October 
17, 1923. 

All of these cases have been under medical observa- 
tion throughout their sojourn in this institution, and 
while the authorities have permitted the Christian 
Science healers a free hand in their treatments, there 
has not been the slightest indication in any case that 
this mental treatment has in any way benefitted the 
bodily ailments from which the patients suffer. Of 
course, this statement is entirely superfluous, as no one 
possessed of a grain of common sense believes that such 
organic diseases as are here enumerated are ever bene- 
fitted by any such humbug. 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 365 


From a City Health Commissioner. 

I consider Christian Science one of the greatest men- 
aces to public health. I will quote you one or two 
definite instances: 

I. Scarlet Fever. On February 6, 1920, June S—— 
was taken sick with scarlet fever. On February 13th, 
Alaine developed the first symptoms of the disease. 
On February 21st, Genevieve was taken sick with the 
same disease. Mrs. S. was the Christian Science prac- 
titioner treating these cases, which were not reported 
to the Health Department as required by the state 
regulations, pertaining to the control of scarlet fever. 
I called at the home and was informed that the children 
were not suffering from any contagious disease, and 
was refused admittance to examine them. The home 
was placed under absolute quarantine and the father 
summoned to court. He was defended by a lawyer. In 
the court they granted me permission to inspect the 
premises. 

When I arrived at the house with the father and the 
lawyer I was informed that they did not give me per- 
mission to examine the children, only the premises. I 
informed them that they were all under quarantine and 
the father and the lawyer would not be permitted to 
leave the premises until after I was convinced there was 
no contagious disease there. I was then given permis- 
sion to examine the children and found three well devel- 
oped cases of scarlet fever. On March 2nd, Alaine 
died, and the certificate was signed by Dr. A. C. R., the 
cause of death, scarlet fever. Dr. R. was summoned 
into court, prosecuted and fined one hundred dollars 
and costs for not reporting a contagious disease. He 
was defended by the same lawyer that Mr. S. had pre- 
viously. You will note that the first case of scarlet 


366 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


fever was in this home unquarantined and the contacts 
coming and going from the sick room at their pleasure 
for eighteen days. 


From a City Health Commissioner. 

II. Diphtheria. A case of diphtheria, school girl, 
the mother informing the school nurse several times 
that the child was not sick. A school teacher boarding 
at this home notified me that she thought there was a 
case of diphtheria in the house. I called at the home. 
The mother told me that the child was not sick and 
refused to have me examine the child, although the 
glands of the neck were very much swollen and the 
child almost unable to open her mouth. Another school 
child in the family had a membrane extending about 
one-quarter of an inch out of the nostrils. I immedi- 
ately placed this family in quarantine for diphtheria, 
excluded the boarder from the home, and took cultures 
from another child who was attending school during 
the nine days these cases were not reported. His cul- 
ture being negative, he was allowed to change his resi- 
dence in conformity with the state ruling. When these 
cases were ready for release, cultures were taken which 
were positive to diphtheria. These cases were being 
treated by a Christian Science practitioner. 

III. Smallpox. In November and December, 1920, 
an epidemic of smallpox occurred, and the local Board 
of Health issued orders that all unvaccinated children 
should be excluded from schools until the epidemic 
subsided. There was considerable opposition on the 
part of the Christian Scientists. A reader of the Chris- 
tian Science brought suit for $25,000.00 damages 
against the individual members of the School Board, 
the principal and the superintendent of schools for 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 367 


excluding his child, who was not vaccinated against 
smallpox. After many continuances this case was 
finally brought to trial. The court ruled against the 
Christian Scientists. 

We have many cases where children suffering from 
chicken pox have returned to school not fully recov- 
ered from the disease, these cases not being reported. 
The mothers explain the diseases as strawberry rash, 
flea bites, and mosquito bites (during the winter 
months). 

Many cases of other communicable diseases, as 
whooping cough, measles, German measles, etc., are 
discovered by the school nurses in homes of Christian 
Scientists; quite naturally the practitioners do not 
recognise them. 

The objection made to a placard on the house is that 
it is suggestive and others get the disease from reading 
the sign by thinking disease, not by the exposure. 


Diphtheria—M alnutrition—C onsum ption—Cancer. 

While Coroner of County, it became my duty 
to investigate the following cases. In each instance my 
office furnished the death certificate. 

I. Diphtheria. <A child, three years of age, died 
while under the treatment of a Christian Science prac- 
titioner. The healer visited the home three times daily 
at two dollars per visit, and gave three absent treat- 
ments each day at one dollar per treatment. Within a 
few hours of the end, physicians were called in, but 
were unable at that late stage to secure any favourable 
results from antitoxin. 

II. Malnutrition in a child, aged one year. This 
patient received only absent treatments, the practi- 
tioner working from a distance of forty-five miles. 





368 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


The child had been poorly nourished from birth, and 
had suffered from eczema. Instead of rational feeding 
as could have been had under the direction of a physi- 
cian, the baby fought it out alone—and lost. 

III. Death in this instance was from slow consump- 
tion. The patient was the mother of three children. 
No precautions to protect the other members of the 
family were observed throughout her illness. A Chris- 
tian Science practitioner had the case for more than a 
year. The healer was very arrogant to the coroner 
who signed the death certificate. 

IV. Cancer. This woman was an accomplished 
musician. Her death was a great loss to the commun- 
ity. She was attended by a Christian Science practi- 
tioner from the beginning of her illness. Autopsy 
showed a cancer of the large bowel. The patient suf- 
fered greatly for three years before she succumbed. 


Mental Obstetrics—Doctor Repudiated. 


Five years ago I attended one of the leading Chris- 
tian Science women of this town through her first con- 
finement. She explained that her neighbours would 
doubtless criticise her, if she did not have a doctor 
present. She was an old primipara, and the birth was 
slow and difficult. It became necessary to resort to in- 
strumental interference under general anesthesia. The 
case was long drawn out, and her complaints of suffer- 
ing were bitter and vociferous. In fact, her behaviour 
throughout the ordeal was unrestrained and hysterical. 
After it was all over both she and her husband boasted 
that she “ got along fine and had no pain.” 

Their explanation of the use of forceps was that, 
being a doctor, I felt it necessary to make a bluff at 
doing something. Her nurse was one of those para- 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 369 


doxical creatures—‘ Christian Science nurse.” Why 
“nurse ”’? To most of us, at least, “nurse” suggests 
sickness or the helpless condition of infancy. 


Ovarian Cyst—Operation Refused—Faial 
Termination. 


This case is that of my brother’s widow, Mrs. H. 
The poor woman passed away in October, 1923, and 
was truly a martyr to this damnable hypnotic influence 
—Christian Science. She was assured by three compe- 
tent surgeons that her tumour could be safely removed 
by means of an operation and that there was no reason 
why she could not be restored to health. 

The experience that I have just gone through is the 
most heart-rending and tragic I have ever been called 
upon to face. In fact, I feel so strongly concerning it 
that I would be not only willing, but glad to bring suit 
against the two practitioners who were guilty of crim- 
inal negligence and responsible for the death of this 
poor woman, if I could have sufficient support. As the 
patient lay in bed both before and after her death, one 
would think that she had a pillow upon her stomach 
under the covering, the tumour was so large. 

Mrs. H. died at a so-called Christian Science sani- 
tarium conducted by a Mrs. H. S. D., who, by the way, 
is not a very good advertisement for Christian Science, 
as she, herself, has a goiter of immense size. Mrs. H. 
told me that she had suggested to both her practitioners 
that she wished to have an operation performed, and 
that one of them said: “ You ought to be ashamed of 
yourself. The only reason you have not been healed is 
because of your lack of faith.” The other said: ‘“ Of 
course, you know and I know that the removal of the 
‘tumour by means of an operation will not solve your 


370 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


problem, as the real cause of your trouble is not the 
tumour, but is in your thought.” 

The sick woman’s position was both pitiful and 
tragic. She was torn between the desire for relief and 
a haunting fear that should she yield to material aid, 
even to the slightest degree, God would forsake her. I, 
myself, felt almost like a criminal and a traitor, both 
to the memory of my departed brother, and to his 
widowed helpmeet. I could only confess my help- 
lessness, aS only a resort to physical force could 
have torn their prey from these two vultures in 
human form. 

It was with inexpressible sadness and regret that I 
was compelled to confess myself almost without hope 
of being able to do anything further to help my broth- 
er’s widow. ‘This feeling of helplessness was, I think, 
the most agonising feature of the whole wretched 
baffling situation. I brought every possible influence to 
bear upon Mrs. H. that I felt would have any weight, 
but failed miserably at every turn. She was so com- 
pletely under the domination and control of this in- 
iquitous power that she seemed to have lost all confi- 
dence in even her best friends. 

I implored the resident practitioner to permit an 
operation. She replied by letter, from which I quote: 
“Of course, from my standpoint, I don’t see an oper- 
ation, and could not advise it. Is it fair to expect it 
of me?” In a little footnote to another letter under 
date of October 20, 1923, this same practitioner said: 
“Sent for Dr. W. for a diagnosis. I believe I had for- 
gotten to tell you about it.” On the next day, October 
21, 1923, this poor woman died, having been hounded 
to an untimely death. The final word for her is now 
graven on a tablet in the cemetery. 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 371 


Mental Obstetrics—Two Deaths. 

Seven years ago I was consulted by a young married 
woman who was expecting her first baby. A prelim- 
inary survey of conditions revealed the fact that the 
patient had a somewhat deformed pelvis. Though the 
condition was not marked, yet it might mean unusual 
difficulty in the case. I asked that she go to a hospital, 
as a matter of added safety, and I would care for her 
there. 

Not hearing from the woman again till one day, 
meeting her sister, I made inquiry. The sister told me 
that the husband’s mother was a Christian Scientist 
and that they had decided to engage a practitioner of 
that faith. When the time came they hired their healer. 
The labour was prolonged. The healer read and 
prayed, telephoned, read and prayed, still no baby. 
Natural delivery, it developed, was impossible, and 
this unfortunate young woman died in agony, and 
along with her died her half-born babe. The last I 
ever heard of this case was that the husband was pre- 
paring to bring suit against the healer and his own 
mother for causing the death of his wife and baby. 


Mental Obstetrics. 


A few days ago I received a hurry-up call from an 
old time member of my clientele. The call was occa- 
sioned by cries of distress coming from the top apart- 
ment, occupied by my friend’s tenant. The woman in 
question was known as a confirmed Christian Scientist, 
and for nine months her faith had battled to repudiate 
her true condition. 

My friend found her tenant entirely nude sitting on 
a commode, and evidently in great distress, constantly 
repeating: “Oh, God, give me faith to move my bow- 


872 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


els.” My friend suggested calling a doctor, but the 
woman, between exclamations of pain, said: “‘ No, get 
a Christian Science practitioner.” Presently the 
woman screeched, ‘‘God has answered my prayer— 
my bowels are moving, ouc H! ” On the heels of 
the woman’s scream came another cry from the bowl 
beneath, and my friend, sensing the situation, took 
matters into her own hands and sent me a hurry-up 
call. Impelled by common sense—common to all ani- 
mals except Christian Scientists fully matured in non- 
sense—my friend rescued the unwelcome baby from an 
early demise in the sewer. The Eddyite woman now 
consented to allow herself to be placed in the hands of 
a surgeon. A laceration of the second degree required 
stitches, and this matter was attended to on the fourth 
day under local anesthesia. Toward the finish of the 
operation, the effect of the drug wearing off, the patient 
began giving herself mental treatments. She repeated 
over and over: ‘“ God is my light.” Sandwiched be- 
tween these expressions of divine metaphysics were a 
goodly number of lusty “ ouches”’ accurately timed to 
the needle punctures through the skin. After all this, 
the patient has relapsed into that vacuous mental state 
which accepts at face value Mrs. Eddy’s solemn decla- 
ration that: ‘To abolish marriage and maintain gen- 
eration is possible in Christian Science.” 





Mastoid Abscess—Meningitis—Fatal. 


A Christian Science nurse, by the name of P. ; 
sent for me to “ diagnose”’ a case. The ‘‘ case”? was 
that of a little girl eight years of age who had been 
troubled with a ‘‘running ear” for several weeks. 
Several attacks of earache ending in a “ gathering ” in 





THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3878 


her ear had been “ healed ” by Christian Science. This 
attack, however, was not following the beaten path to 
harmony. The ear refused to break as usual, and the 
“nurse,” still possessing a little remnant of human 
sympathy, was distressed to see the “little thing 
suffer so.” 

My visit was made in the evening, and I was asked 
not to let the child know that I was a doctor. I found 
the little patient in a dimly-lighted room with every- 
body going about on tip-toe, and carrying on conversa- 
tion in whispers. The child cried out upon the least 
disturbance. The condition was plainly that of mas- 
toid abscess complicating middle ear disease. I urged 
the parents to have an operation done that very night. 
They said they would think it over and let me know. 
Near midnight of the same evening the father tele- 
phoned me that they had decided to continue the 
“same treatment,” that is, treatment by a Christian 
Science practitioner. 

Seven days later, an undertaker came to my office to 
secure a death certificate for the little child. From 
him I learned the subsequent history of the case. 
There had been delirium, stupour, and convulsions 
followed by profound unconsciousness. In this con- 
dition the little sufferer had slept away. I refused to 
sign a death certificate, as I considered this death un- 
justifiable homicide, and a very proper one for the 
coroner to investigate. 


A Bachelor’s “ Secret.” 

Seeing your open letter in our State Medical Journal, 
I am led to reveal a personal experience that is some- 
thing more than the report of a case. 


374 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


It seems but yesterday, but measured in years it 
was a long time ago when Christian Science was more 
of a novelty than it is today. Until the blighting in- 
fluence of this Occidental Yoga came into my life, to 
me it had been just another ‘“‘ metaphysical ” bubble 
engrafted upon an old and shattered philosophy. Lit- 
tle had I dreamed that my future was to be profoundly 
influenced by the teachings of a notorious “* Mother 
God” whose most prominent characteristic was a 
mental twist. 

As I recall the events of the struggle to establish 
myself in my chosen profession, medicine, there come 
a fullness in my throat and a dimming of my eyes, 
which tell me that the sweet and hallowed influence 
that helped me then, is with me still. 

She, who had promised to share the uncertain future 
of a medical student, and the hardships of a young 
physician’s life, was my aid, my courage, and her 
happiness, my ambition. 

My start was slow. The means of impressing a com- 
munity, such as a horse and carriage, were beyond my 
reach; however, there came a time when my meager 
income gave promise of providing enough for two. In 
the meantime a shadow fell upon our hopes. Failing 
health and strength became more and more apparent. 
Modesty withheld from me the true condition, and loy- 
alty to me as her ideal physician restrained her from 
seeking the advice of another. 

Here enters Christian Science with its siren promise 
of certain relief from all fear of cancer of the breast, or 
of any other undesirable and inharmonious “ state of 
mind.” At length, when this impossible situation re- 
solved, conditions were beyond control. They buried 
my sweetheart, and with her the best in my life. 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3875 


I have attained what the world calls success. My 
name is a familiar one among those who have dedicated 
themselves to the relief of human misery. I am some- 
times asked why I choose to live alone with only my 
profession to give me solace. I am not alone. There 
is always with me a beautiful character—an angel face 
radiant with enduring love for me. But my children, 
they are only dream children. They have no mother. 
She was stolen away by a thief in the night and the 
name of that thief is Christian Science. This is my 
“‘ case ’’—my lifetime secret. 


Uterine Fibroid—Surgery Required. 

In the spring of 1902, there came out of the west a 
man of fifty-eight, who was born in a New England 
state in September, 1844. With this man came a 
woman of forty-two, the mother of five children. From 
a far western state they came on a pilgrimage to the 
“Hub of the Universe”’ to secure, at first hand, the 
ministrations of a famous healer who was then coming 
into great estate. This woman from the west was the 
lawful wife of the man of New England birth, and it 
was she in whose behalf the pilgrimage was undertaken, 
being afflicted with what mere medical men term a 
fibroid tumour of the womb. The husband, the son of 
an unnatural mother, had said to his good wife, “‘ We'll 
go home to mother and tell her our troubles.” They 
went; they told their troubles. They were informed 
they had no troubles. The woman bled and bled, and 
after several months of bleeding with nothing the mat- 
ter, the husband, this son of a healer, told his Ma that 
they were through with the wonders of the “‘ Hub ” and 
were going back west. Yes, “told,” as he had never 


376 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


learned to write,—‘ told” this same mother that he 
was going of his own accord this time, instead of her 
sending him away, as she had done when he was a baby 
boy not at her knee, but in her way—under foot as 
it were. 

At a great city midway between the east and the 
west, this suffering, bleeding, disappointed daughter- 
in-law of the discoverer of the only system of healing 
that the earth has ever beheld in perfected and copy- 
righted form, stopped off to receive the benefits of real 
science, directed by normal brains. Here three weeks 
accomplished what senseless jargon for three months 
had utterly failed to do. Once more they two, the out- 
cast, illiterate son and the wife, now minus several 
pounds of tumour, resumed their westward journey to 
their own prairie home surroundings, there to enjoy 
some of the tainted money that one of the joint authors 
of this book compelled the inner ring at the headquar- 
ters of “‘ Principle ” to disgorge. 


Cancer of the Breast. 


Mrs. X., a Christian Science practitioner for more 
than thirty years, was admitted to my service, referred 
by Dr. F. G. She had had a scirrhous carcinoma of the 
breast for several years, during which time she treated 
it herself, and had it treated by other practitioners. 
But in spite of their great faith it persisted and contin- 
ued to grow and finally became painful, and lumps 
formed under the arm. | 

Through the advice of relatives she sought the aid 
of a physician. <A radical operation was performed, 
but we knew that under the circumstances it was too 
late to do much good. I have no doubt that if this 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 377 


patient had been operated upon when she first noticed 
the lump, she could have been cured, and I am equally 
convinced that inasmuch as there was a lot of metas- 
tases, she will have a recurrence which will be chalked 
up as a failure against surgery. After the operation 
was performed I was told by the patient and another 
Christian Science practitioner that my services were 
no longer required, as I had done all that a surgeon 
could do for her, and from then on she put her faith in 
the Lord. She made a good recovery. This case is a 
recent one. 


Lead Poisoning. 


The following may be of interest to you in your col- 
lection of Christian Science stories, as indicating the 
peculiar process of mind that goes to make a Christian 
Scientist. Mr. A. came to me, some years ago, suffer- 
ing with severe abdominal pains of long duration, with 
a train of other symptoms which no physician had been 
able to relieve. I referred him to a colleague, as I am 
a throat specialist, who very promptly made the diag- 
nosis of lead poisoning. The patient was employed in 
a large electrical concern, handled much lead, his hands 
held on to the lead and he ate quantities in conveying 
food to his mouth. 

Treatment was entirely successful. Without the 
diagnosis and treatment, he would have become para- 
lysed, and surely the skill of the doctor saved his life. 
In spite of this personal experience, Mr. A. is a devout 
Christian Scientist, and influences those whom he can 
reach, to believe as he does. 

While the above is not strictly a report of the evil 
that follows adherence to Christian Science, it may be 
useful as indicating the base ingratitude and mental 


878 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


perversion of one of the adherents of that cult. You 
may use these facts as you have indicated in your letter 
to the Illinois Medical Journal. 


Immense Abdominal Tumour in Christian Science 
Healer—Operation. 


The enclosed photographs tell the story of the trou- 
' bles of a Christian Science practitioner living on 
Sheridan Road, Chicago. 

This woman was, and is a popular healer of this cult. 
However, for a period of seventeen months she was in- 
capacitated by an abdominal tumour, which was too 
much for a regiment of healers. She came under my 
care at the A Hospital, and had her tumour re- 
moved surgically. She made an uneventful recovery, 
and is now once more engaged in the lucrative business 
of telling people that ailments are in their prs and 
nowhere else. | 

The photographs were taken at the time of the oper- 
ation, and while the healer was snoring lustily under 
the Cente of a material remedy, ether, that made 
her insensible to the knife. The first picture was 
taken just before the operation was begun, and the 
second shows what was left of the patient immediately 
after ninety pounds of tumour had been separated 
from her. These photographs were taken because this 
tumour was so enormous. In these days of watchful- 
ness on the part of the medical profession, we seldom 
see such large tumours. These photographs are also 
conclusive evidence that this healer’s truth and veracity 
are not of very high order, for even before she was well 
enough to leave the hospital she began claiming that 
her illness was all a mistake, and that in reality there 
had been no tumour. 





THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3879 


A ppendicitis—Peritonitis—Death. 

Three years ago, a young woman of-thirty fell sud- 
denly ill. She was a Christian Science believer, and 
her “error” was recognised as a passing fancy of 
‘‘mortal mind,” which mental treatment could chase 
away with the greatest ease. The young woman gave 
herself the common garden variety of Christian Science 
treatment, but the belief of pain in her abdomen was 
stronger than her faith. 

A practitioner, more deeply intrenched in divine 
science, was then placed in command of the situation, 
but the pain and distress in the abdomen would not be 
denied. Vomiting, fever, and great prostration drove 
the wary practitioner to cover, and a friendly M.D. 
was appealed to for a “diagnosis.” This particular 
M.D. stands weil with the Eddy group, and his signa- 
ture is available whenever a deluded follower of 
“Mother Eddy” passes on. The accommodating 
M.D. affixed his obliging signature as usual, naming 
typhoid fever as the cause of the young Eddyite’s dis- 
harmony. The health officials, however, thought the 
diagnosis improbable, as the illness had been very 
short. The coroner’s office was asked to ascertain the 
cause of death. An autopsy uncovered peritonitis from 
a ruptured, gangrenous appendix. 

This unsuccessful attempt to hide the failure of 
Christian Science treatment of real disease shows to 
what extent an unprincipled doctor will go in order to 
hide manslaughter at the hands of equally unprincipled 
practitioners of a fake healing system. 


Typhoid Fever—Death from Perforation. 


I remember very distinctly, a few years ago, an 
emergency call to see a young woman who had been 


880 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


sick for some time with typhoid fever. The patient, a 
girl of eighteen, had been under the care of Christian 
Science practitioners for several weeks when, her con- 
dition becoming alarming, some of the more rational 
members of her family sent a hurry-up call for med- 
ical assistance. 

I found the young lady in extremis. Her abdomen 
was rigid, distended and extremely tender to pressure. 
Her pulse was scarcely perceptible and the expression 
of her face was one of anxiety and great suffering. She 
had, no doubt, suffered a perforation of the intestine 
and was nearing the end of her earthly existence 
through hemorrhage and peritonitis. 

She was past the stage of operation, and died in an 
hour or so. She had a twin sister who, during the time 
I was in the house, before and after the patient died, 
frequently went up to her mother and exclaimed, 
“‘ Isn’t everything lovely? ” 


Diabetes—Coma—Death. 


There is a request in Northwest Medicine for Octo- 
ber that readers of the journal mentioned who are fa- 
miliar with cases in which favourable results could 
reasonably have been expected to follow the use of 
proper medical or surgical measures, but in which 
serious injury resulted through reliance on Christian 
Science, shall write reports of such cases. 

This is the story of Mildred R., aged twelve, living 
at home with her father and mother. She had 
diabetes, was on the insulin treatment and getting 
along fairly well. Of course, insulin is not a cure 
for diabetes, and leaves much to be desired in the 
way of treatment for that disease. Mildred did not 
always follow her diet as she should, and often ate 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3881 


things she ought not to eat. Neither did she like a 
hypodermic injection of insulin before each meal, three 
times a day. But in spite of all this, she was getting 
along fairly well. 

One day a lodge brother of her father’s was at the 
house and told the usual story about a woman he once 
knew that was sick, and the doctors were not helping 
her at all, etc. This woman tried Christian Science and 
the next day she was well. Just like that. So Mildred 
decided that she wanted to try ‘ Christian Science,” 
and her father took her to a neighbouring town where 
one of these ladies lived and Mildred saw the Christian 
Science lady. The Eddyite told Mildred that she 
should discontinue the use of the insulin and she could 
eat anything she wanted to. Of course, this was joyful 
news to Mildred, and she immediately went down town 
and ate four ham sandwiches. That evening, at the 
picture show, Mildred was so sick that her father had 
to hire a taxicab to take her home. The next day she 
ate a big dinner, all she wanted, and she went into 
diabetic coma that night (Thursday) and died at 9 
A. M. the following Saturday, October 4. 


Pulmonary Consumption—Death. 


This patient came under my observation in Septem- 
ber, 1923. She had spent a number of months in the 
Municipal Sanitarium because of beginning tubercu- 
losis of the lungs. The rational treatment she received 
at the sanitarium had caused arrest of her lung trouble, 
and she appeared to be on the high road to recovery. 
Six months later, I saw this woman again. She had 
come under the influence of Christian Science, and had 
obeyed instructions to disregard all hygienic rules 
which had been laid down for her at the sanitarium. 


382 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Discretion and regularity in habits of diet, sleep, rest 
and exercise were ignored. 

Relying on the constant repetition of assurance that 
she was getting along “‘ splendidly,” she was persuaded 
that her recovery would soon be complete. Every 
physician, of course, knows that patients afflicted with 
pulmonary tuberculosis are characteristically hopeful, 
and with what regularity they become easy prey for 
the charlatan. This patient could not see that she was 
going down hill rapidly, and she took to her bed only 
when she was too weak to hold her head up. 

Upon my arrival I was informed that I was wanted 
to “diagnose” the case. I assured the family that I 
would do nothing of the kind. As far as the diagnosis 
was concerned, their ‘‘ healer ’” knew perfectly well that 
the woman was about to die of consumption, and that 
any of their neighbours could make a diagnosis for 
them. 

The coroner’s physician performed his official duty 
to society, and a burial permit was issued as in the case 
of any other mortal under like circumstances. Rob- 
bing the dead, in my opinion, is a highly commendable 
way of getting money in comparison with robbing a 
consumptive of his only chance to live. 


Gall-Stones—Surgeon’s Hypodermic Called for. 


My professional services were called for in the case 
of an elderly woman who, for six hours, had been suf- 
fering from a pain so severe that the Scientists were 
unable to get the better of it. A daughter assured me 
that I was wanted to administer a hypodermic and for 
no other purpose, as they were Christian Scientists and 
could handle the situation mentally after the belief in 
pain had been lulled by an injection of morphine. 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3883 


The patient was delirious with pain, and anyone who 
has ever suffered from gall-stone colic, will agree that 
a well marked attack calls for vigourous treatment. 
Under such circumstances, a ‘‘ hypodermic” for the 
pain in the common run of human beings, and for the 
belief of pain in Christian Scientists, ‘is the proper 
thing. 

I administered the coveted ‘ hypodermic,” and in 
twenty minutes had the dear old lady snoring peace- 
fully. She went to sleep fighting the idea that the relief 
was really due to the opiate I had given her. 

The next day I was sent for again, but this time I 
washed out the patient’s stomach with a rubber tube 
which I carry about with me for that purpose. The 
result was just as satisfactory as before. The passing 
of the stomach tube, however, seemed to be rather dis- 
tasteful to grandma. I have not been sent for since. 


Pneumonia—Christian Science Treatment—Fatal. 


I know a family who are Christian Science adher- 
ents. When one of the children, a son, became ill of 
pneumonia, a practitioner of the Christian Science 
faith was called in. The local healer proceeded to 
administer treatment with such success that great im- 
provement was noticed, even by two older sisters, who 
were school teachers. This sort of “ improvement ” 
progressed until the boy became unconscious, when 
the need of more efficient talent was realised. Accord- 
ingly a more effective practitioner, a more calloused 
healer, was called from a distance at $5.00 a call plus 
telephone charges. This distant lady practitioner 
urged frequent calls, and each time over the multi- 
party country line very encouraging messages were 
heard by their neighbours, for example, “‘I can see 


384 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


“'L.” very plainly. How well he looks.” ‘“ What 
wonderful improvement,” etc. So, for two days, ‘ L.” 
continued to “‘ improve.” I felt that near the end an 
“S. O. S.” would come, in order to get a death certifi- 
cate. I advised my telephone attendant that I would 
not accept a call from there, and if one came, to advise 
them to get some other doctor. 

While I was making a call at a neighbour’s, the 
expected ‘‘ doctor’s call ” was hurried over the country 
line (which was a signal for everybody on the line to 
listen), but it was Dr. Christian Science they still 
wanted, and soon service was issued out to a dying boy 
seventy miles away. The family where I was, heard 
the following: “I can see “LL.” very plainly; he is 
doing very nicely. You are unnecessarily alarmed, and 
unless you have faith, he will die. I fear your faith is 
not strong enough. Have you had anything to do with 
that M.D. outfit? If you have, the boy is gone.” As 
was expected by those who visited there, the boy passed 
away, but, still having faith, the seventy-mile-off city 
was again called and informed of the outcome. Mrs. 
Practitioner said: ‘‘ The Lord knows best. “ L.’’ has 
been called home. What a blessing! ” ‘‘ You had 
better call a physician.” “S.O.S8.” Ting-a-ling-ling. 
“‘ Have the doctor come to ‘C’ at once.” They were 
informed that this doctor would not come. My col- 
league was called and responded. Upon his arrival he 
found the boy dead. 


Heart Disease—Diabetes. 

An old lady, aged fifty-nine, Jewish widow, afflicted 
with a marked mitral regurgitation, myocardial insuf- 
ficiency, diabetes and a large uterine fibroid had been 
under my care for six months or a year. I explained 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 385 


to the family that all I could do was to keep her com- 
fortable, prolong her life a little, but otherwise medi- 
cine could do nothing for her. One day her brother 
came to see me. He asked me whether Christian 
Science would do his sister any good2 I answered, ° 
“No, but if she follows a healer’s advice she will die 
much quicker than otherwise.’”’ He considered a mo- 
ment and then asked, “ Did you ever notice that pic- 
ture on the wall facing the bed? ” I answered, “ Yes, 
it is one of the most beautiful pictures of the Venus 
de Milo that I have ever seen.”’ He then replied, 
“Well, those fools (her other brother and his wife) 
had that picture placed there where she could always 
see it, and if she will only look at it long enough and 
concentrate her thoughts sufficiently and follow the 
prayers of the “ healer ” she will attain a like beauty 
and symmetry of form.” 

As a later history, I will state that she did not con- 
centrate either long or intensely enough and the dia- 
betes, aided by the indiscretions in diet permitted, or 
rather commanded by Christian Science, finished the 
job long before any signs of the symmetry of Venus 
were apparent. 


Rat Poison—Intestinal Obsiruction—Consum ption. 


I was called to see a two-year-old child who had 
arisen early and had eaten several crackers covered 
with arsenic, which had been scattered about the 
kitchen for rat-bait. The mother and grandmother, 
both Eddyites, insisted that no harm could come to the 
child. The father much preferred the services of a 
physician to those of the coroner, and he ordered 
proper treatment for his child. 

I administered the antidote which every medical stu- 


886 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


dent is required to know. The child escaped with its 
life, although it had a close call. The grandmother 
telephoned me that the child was all right, that it had 
been in no danger at any time, except from the lack of 
harmony that had been brought about by the activities 
of an M.D. with all his useless fuss. 

The parents, some months later, went away on a 
visit, leaving this same child in care of a “ practi- 
tioner.” The child became acutely ill with bowel ob- 
struction. There had been signs of partial obstruction 
following the ingestion of the rat poison, constipation 
at times being almost absolute, probable due to the 
healing of intestinal ulceration with consequent nar- 
rowing of the caliber of the intestine. The grandfather 
came to the rescue this time and called in a colleague 
of mine. The doctor found the child stretched out on 
the dining-room table and the practitioner reading to it 
from Science and Health. ‘The child was rushed to the 
hospital and once more saved from death. A subse- 
quent attack of the same trouble, neglected in the same 
manner, resulted fatally, the child dying on’ the way to 
the hospital, in spite of repeated quotations from the 
“little book,” that there was nothing the matter with 
the baby. 

The mother of the baby, severat years before these 
events occurred, was one of my “steady neurasthen- 
ics.” About once a month she would report for ex- 
amination for suspected pelvic trouble, which she never 
had. After a couple of years of this, one day she came 
in and reported that she had been miraculously healed 
of her error. 

As an unfortunate sequel to this “ miracle” in her 
case, another tragedy in the family occurred. Her son, 
having reported to me for examination and having pre- 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3887 


sented a classic picture of moderately advanced pul- 
monary tuberculosis, was placed under the sole care of 
a Christian Science practitioner. In due time this 
bright and promising boy was laid to rest in the ceme- 
tery, which from all outward appearances was highly 
satisfactory to his mother. What a strange and un- 
natural thing is “ Christian Science”? Child killing 
in the name of “ divine science”’! 


Scarlet Fever—Diphtheria—Meningitis. 


Among a considerable number of experiences with 
fatal issues in families of Christian Scientists, I am 
quoting the following case as illustrative of the fanat- 
ical attitude assumed by some of the devotees of this 
so-called religion. 

A prosperous automobile tire distributor brought his 
seven-year-old boy to my office, in 1920. He told me 
that his boy did not seem to be doing well. The child 
was extremely edematous throughout his entire body 
and had some dropsy. Upon examination, I found that 
he had hemorrhagic nephritis of an extreme degree. 
The further history elicited that the child had had an 
untreated rash, with sore throat, which, in all proba- 
bility, was scarlet fever, some four weeks previously. 
The father simply stated that they had not felt the 
need of sending for a physician for the preceding acute 
illness—without any further explanation. 

One year later, on Sunday morning, I was called to 
the home of this man to see the other child in the fam- 
ily—a girl of five years. Upon examination, I found 
that the child had a membrane lining the pharynx, 
nasopharynx and both nostrils. A direct smear, which 
was made immediately, corroborated the clinical diag- 
nosis of diphtheria. Upon inquiry as to the where- 


388 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


abouts of the boy whom I had treated for nephritis, I 
was told that he had been buried on the preceding day. 
The history of the boy’s illness was as follows: 

He had been sick for twelve days, and throughout 
this time under the care of a Christian Science prac- 
titioner. As he did not improve, on the Wednesday 
preceding his death, which occurred on Friday, a 
so-called Christian Science Doctor (a graduate of an 
extinct grade C school) was called in consultation by 
the practitioner, and he made a clinical diagnosis of 
diphtheria. He told the parents that nothing could be 
done in the way of treatment for the child. The child 
died forty-eight hours later. 

Upon inquiry as to the whereabouts of the mother, I 
was told that she was not seeing visitors, and the father 
later told me she was not feeling very well. Upon my 
insistence the mother came into the room and to all 
appearances was very weak and looked as though she 
had passed through a severe illness. Upon examina- 
tion of her throat I found a diphtheritic membrane cov- 
ering both fauces. I informed the father that it would 
be necessary to give the child and the mother large 
doses of antitoxin. They consented to the child’s re- 
ceiving the antitoxin, but it was only after considerable 
argument that the mother was persuaded to take treat- 
ment. The main obstacle was a fanatical grandmother 
on the maternal side, who said she would hold me re- 
sponsible for any untoward results following the ad- 
ministration of serum. ‘The father consented to a 
prophylactic dose of serum, but the grandmother re- 
fused all interference with what she termed her consti- 
tutional rights. 

- The child was several months recovering her health. 
The mother had quite recovered in the course of three 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 389 


weeks. The subsequent history of the family is of 
some interest in that the father deserted his family a 
few months later. 

A second experience was in the family of the owner 
of a chain of restaurants in the city of Chicago. The 
father of this child is a leader in one of the larger 
Christian Science churches in Chicago, and from time 
to time has been known as a reader in the church. I 
might state incidentally that in each of those restaur- 
ants there will be found a rack containing Christian 
Science literature for free distribution, usually along- 
side the cashier’s desk. 

I was called to the home to see an infant less than a 
year of age, and found it dying from meningitis. Upon 
inquiry, I was told that the child had been under the 
care of a Christian Science practitioner for several days 
and that the practitioner had suggested that they call 
in a physician to make a diagnosis. I informed the 
parents that it would be necessary to do a spinal punc- 
ture to complete the diagnosis, which privilege was 
refused, and I was advised that they had not called me 
in to administer treatment, but that if it became the 
Lord’s will that the child should die they would call 
upon me to issue a certificate as to the cause of death. 
I told them it would be necessary that I report to the 
Health Department my having seen this case of menin- 
gitis, but that I would not be in a position to make a 
report as to the cause of death. I was later informed 
that the child died about six hours after my visit. 


Acute Urinary Retention—Catheter Resoried to. 

Not long since I was called, in a great hurry, to the 
home of one of the few Christian Scientists that infest 
this town. ‘The occasion of this hurried call was the 


390 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


fact that the head of the family found himself unable 
to empty his bladder. The wife said to me: ‘“ Doctor, 
my husband is out of harmony, and we would like your 
help until we can heal him mentally.” I found that 
this follower of Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy 
had, for twelve hours, been trying to convince himself 
that his bladder was not overloaded and that he was 
mistaken in thinking that the condition was becoming 
unbearable. The patient had been walking the floor 
with a copy of Science and Health in his hand till he 
could contain himself no longer. With a catheter I 
restored him to “ harmony ” in three minutes. 

After drawing a long breath of relief, he delivered 
himself of the following: “ What a fool I am? I 
would have been relieved if I had had faith and pa- 
tience.”’ Several times after that I piped off his dishar- 
mony with a catheter. Finally, he concluded that the 
Lord knew best, and accordingly he provided himself 
with a catheter of his own, and now when his bladder 
tries to interfere with his harmony he punctures the 
offending imaginary viscus with a hollow rubber tube, 
and thus proves the truth of Christian Science, and 
holds fast to that which is good. 


Consum ption—Death. 


In the course of my professional work, that of the 
general practice of medicine, I discovered moderately 
advanced pulmonary tuberculosis in a young woman, 
Miss W. After making the diagnosis, the patient 
passed through the hands of two other physicians, and 
then disappeared from observation. Many months 
afterward, I was called at midnight by my former 
patient’s mother, who informed me that her daughter 
had been under treatment by Christian Scientists for 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 391 


the past six months. A Christian Science nurse was on 
the case and it was at her suggestion that I was sent for. 

I found the patient in great discomfort, having had 
a supper of pork chops and fried potatoes prepared for 
her by her nurse, who was following the instructions of 
the practitioner in charge. The nurse told me that I 
could give the patient a hypodermic for her pain. 
However, I feared the patient, in her weakened con- 
dition, would never waken from a dose of morphine, so 
did not follow the direction of the practitioner as 
relayed to me by the nurse. 

The patient died forty-eight hours later. It was 
very plain and very obvious what the real motive was 
back of the requested medical call—a death certificate 
was about to be needed. 


A ppendicitis—Fatal. 


In answer to a letter published in the Ohio State 
Medical Journal for October, requesting the informa- 
tion on cases treated by Christian Science, I wish to 
submit the following: 

Miss M. D., a newspaper reporter, suffered from 
chronic appendicitis for some two years to my knowl- 
edge. She had attacks at the newspaper office in which 
she would lie across her desk having abdominal pain. 
When she would feel these attacks coming she would 
call the practitioner and apply for absent treatment. 
Some of these attacks were so severe as to require 
absence from work for various periods of time. Her 
last attack was the one in which she suffered most, 
bearing extreme pain all through that day and into the 
night. The family were calling on the reader for relief, 
and the reader also made visits in person during this 
day. After midnight Miss D.’s father said that he 


392 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


could not stand this any longer, and insisted that med- 
ical aid be summoned—at least to relieve pain. About 
3 A. M. the former family physician was called. He 
readily diagnosed the condition as appendicitis in 
acute and very serious form, and advised immediate 
operation. The family asked for relief of pain, which 
was partly accomplished by the use of morphine. The 
physician still insisted on consultation with a surgeon, 
which was finally agreed to. The surgeon agreed in 
the diagnosis and also stated that there was very little 
hope with surgical interference. The patient was put 
into an ambulance and sent to a hospital, and when she 
reached it was in a very extreme condition. The sur- 
geon decided that it was useless to interfere surgically. 
The patient died in about one-half hour. This girl, up 
to her last illness, was a picture of health and good 
spirits. There was no question but what surgical in- 
terference at any time during the two years or more in 
which she had the attacks of pain would have cured 
her by the removal of the offending appendix and would 
have saved this fine young woman’s life. 


Exophthalmic Goiter—Pneumonia. 

In 1919, during the influenza epidemic, I was called 
into a Christian Science home where the husband was 
profoundly ill. The treatment throughout the early 
part of his “ error ” had been according to the tenets 
of Christian Science. The patient was evidently very 
ill, and from the history, his difficulty in breathing and 
his bad colour, I suspected the grave condition to be 
pneumonia superimposed upon influenza. 

The patient had had a toxic goiter for a number of 
years, but had regarded that trouble “ healed,” and 
had so declared on every occasion. The patient’s eyes, 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 3938 


face and neck were typical of exophthalmic goiter. 
Physical examination showed an extensive pneumonia, 
and in a very few hours more the disease put an end to 
his mortal suffering. This man had “ téstified ” times 
without number that Christian Science had healed him 
of the fear of what the doctors called goiter. In real- 
ity, however, this healed(?) goiter was the principal 
contributing factor in making his pneumonia fatal. 


Empyema Following Lobar Pneumonia. 


I recall the case of a young woman of perhaps thirty 
years of age, who had been ill for several weeks. From 
the history I could understand that at the beginning 
the patient had suffered an attack of pneumonia. The 
convalescence had been delayed, and instead of gaining 
strength, as favourable cases do, she grew weaker day 
by day, had continued fever, and although she tried to 
go about, her breath was so short and her gait so un- 
steady it was thought best to call a physician ‘to 
diagnose ”’ the case. 

I found the patient gasping for breath, her face and 
body covered with clammy perspiration and with no 
pulse at the wrist. She displayed the physical signs of 
empyema, one-half of her chest being filled to the 
clavicle with pus. She died a few hours afterward. 


Epilepsy. 

A friend of mine has had his home all but broken up 
through Christian Science. His wife, a woman of sixty, 
is an epileptic. For the past ten years she has been in 
“science.” Her fits have continued in spite of her 
Eddy worship. The fact that her convulsions are true 
epileptic attacks during which she herself knows 
nothing of her infirmity, makes it easy for her to be 


394 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


persuaded that she has no affliction whatever. It is 
different with the husband, however, as he is compelled 
to witness-the convulsive attacks, to hear the dreaded 
initial cry, to see the frothing at the mouth, the dis- 
torted features, the snoring, unconscious sleep, and the 
irascibility upon regaining consciousness. To the hus- 
band the situation has been very trying, and at last, in 
desperation, he told his deluded wife that one of two 
courses was open to her, either to consult a physician 
or prepare to see him leave home for surroundings 
where reason is respected. She consented, under this 
pressure, to ‘‘ take her medicine,’”’ and now for over a 
year she has not had a single convulsive attack. 

When it is considered that this woman was at one 
time having as many as three epileptic seizures in a 
single twenty-four hours, and that after submitting to 
rational medical treatment, she has been free from such 
attacks for a year, one would expect to find her cured 
of her faith in Science. Not so, she says she is in 
Science, and that she will “ go out ” in Science. 


Goiter. 


On the second day of January, 1921, Master S. B., 
aged fifteen, was brought to my office literally gasping 
for breath because of a large goiter that was making 
pressure on his larynx and trachea. I hurried him to 
the hospital, a distance of one block, and by the time 
he was on the operating table he was unconscious. I 
removed the right lobe of the thyroid encircling two- 
thirds of the circumference of the larynx and trachea, 
without an anesthetic of any kind. Just as I put in 
the last stitch the boy revived sufficiently to show evi- 
dence of life. The air hunger and exhaustion from an 
effort to breathe had been so extreme that the boy slept 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 395 


almost continuously for thirty-six hours. We had 
difficulty in arousing him sufficiently to give him nour- 
ishment to sustain life. After this he made a rapid 
recovery and has been perfectly well ever since. 

On securing a history, after. his recovery, I found 
that he had been advised by the school doctor, at the 
end of the previous school year, to consult a surgeon, 
but that his mother, a Christian Scientist of the extreme 
type, had violently opposed his seeing a doctor, in 
spite of the fact that the father and six other children 
favoured having medical attention. Every time the 
subject was mentioned, she would flare up and go into 
hysterics, but finally, on the date mentioned above, 
when the father saw that the child was strangling to 
death, he disregarded her protestations and brought 
him to my office in a taxi. If he had been five minutes 
later the boy would have died from strangulation. It 
is needless to say that the boy has been permanently 
cured of Christian Science foolishness, as have all the 
members of the family, except the mother. 


Kidney Abscess—A Narrow Escape. 


The patient, an educated man and president of a 
large corporation, came to me in October, 1923. He 
had pus and blood in the urine with pain in the right 
loin, together with other signs and symptoms of a kid- 
ney infection, which led me to make a diagnosis of 
“surgical kidney.” I advised an operation as the 
safest way out of a serious condition. He demurred to 
this, and a few days later informed me that he had 
decided to make a change. He had been told that 
Christian Science had cured two just such cases as his, 
and so he had decided to try to get well without an 
operation. 


396 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


I heard no more from him till the middle of Janu- 
ary, 1924, at which time he called for me to come down 
and bring along something to freeze a “couple of 
boils ”! When I entered the room, I saw a man who 
had lost fifty-five pounds in weight and was almost 
dead of sepsis. A large lumbar abscess was about to 
burst in two places (the boils). His lips were as white 
as his cheeks. After much argument, he consented to 
be moved to a hospital, but only on condition that he 
could have mental treatments to prevent complications. 
I incised the abscesses and evacuated a quart of offen- 
sive pus, and along with the pus poured out most of the 
disintegrated right kidney. He has had a lung com- 
plication, and faces another operation to clean up the 
‘* mess.” 


Gangrenous A ppendicitis—A bscess—Peritonitis— 
Death. 


On August 8, 1915, I was called, about four o’clock 
in the morning, to attend a case in a Christian Science 
home. Both the mother and the aunt were readers in 
the Christian Science Church, and had been admin- 
istering Science treatments to patients for several 
years. 

According to the history, the patient, a young man 
of seventeen, had been seized, several days previous to 
my visit, with severe abdominal pain and vomiting. 
The pain continued for about three days, and then 
suddenly ceased, due, according to the relatives, to 
the Science treatment. The patient grew steadily 
weaker and the relatives became alarmed and sent for 
a doctor. 

Upon examination, I found the patient was dead. 
Abdominal examination showed a mass in the right 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 397 


lower quadrant, which was hard and dull. From the 
history, a probable diagnosis of acute appendicitis, 
with abscess formation, was made. ‘The case was re- 
ported to the coroner, who made a postmortem exami- 
nation. A ruptured gangrenous appendix was found 
surrounded by about a quart of pus. 


Anal cope tiygaid 


Some years ago, the mother of a prominent Chicago 
dentist came under my care for a mysterious bowel 
trouble that Christian Science practitioners had for 
many months vainly tried to relieve. She was an 
elderly woman, weighing two hundred and twenty-five 
pounds, and lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She 
had not, for months, had more than the slightest pas- 
sages from the bowels—a little brown very fetid feces. 
At last, leaving Grand Rapids, she came to Chicago 
and took rooms opposite the Christian Science Temple 
on Drexel Boulevard, where demonstrations were main- 
tained for six or more weeks, with no relief. 

Under my observation an anal stricture (homeo- 
pathic hemorrhoidal operation) was discovered. After 
snipping the cord about the anus, nurses were kept 
busy for days, ascending and descending with vast 
vessels of feces before the old lady was emptied out. 

Lesson: Christian Science no good for anal stricture. 


Strangulated Hernia—At Christian Science 
Convention. 

Miss J. F., aged thirty-two, single, went to Boston 
and attended a Christian Science convention. While 
there, a small lump appeared in the right femoral re- 
gion, which caused pain and vomiting. The vomiting 
persisted, but she did not call a physician until the 


398 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


sixth day, when she was brought to the hospital by 
her relatives. 

She was then delirious from absorption of the poison- 
ous contents of the obstructed bowel. The hernia was 
operated upon, and the intestine in the hernial sac 
found gangrenous. The intestine was opened, and its 
toxic contents let out, but the patient never rallied; 
she died twenty-four hours after her admission to the 
hospital, her delirium never having subsided. 


Diphtheria—No Antitoxin—Death. 


In connection with my Health Department duties, I 
investigated a diphtheria death which may be of 
interest. 

A little boy, J. . M., aged thirteen years, died after 
an illness lasting a week. After the boy had been 
under Christian Science treatment for three days, a 
doctor was called, but he seemed to be of the same 
stamp as the Christian Scientists, as he did not give the 
treatment insisted on by the Department in all cases of 
diphtheria, at the City Contagious Disease Hospital. 
The parents are said to have objected to antitoxin be- 
cause they were Christian Scientists. The doctor who 
was called, and who signed the death certificate, man- 
ages to get his name in between Christian Science 
victims and coroner’s investigations with considerable 
regularity. He is evidently a “ hired Hessian”? who 
has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. We meet 
his kind in other parts of our jurisdiction. The father 
stated to me that he thought the boy was much better 
on the sixth day of his illness. When it is remembered 
that the little fellow died on the seventh day, we see 
how utterly worthless are the statements of a Christian 
Scientist when he talks about sickness. 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 399 


Syphilis—Nose Lost. 

Some time ago, Mrs. M., the mother of a janitor 
living on West Fulton Street, Chicago, called me to her 
home for the treatment of a large ulcerating hole, 
which had completely taken the place of her nose. 
The nose itself was completely ulcerated off, excepting 
a small projection at the top about one-half inch long. 
After taking a careful history, the diagnosis was clearly 
one of syphilis. This woman said she had been under 
Christian Science treatment for four years past, and 
during that four years had not seen a physician. After 
several treatments of 606 and several injections of 
mercury the ulceration completely healed over, and the 
woman’s general condition improved very, very much. 

I have had several similar cases in my seventeen 
years’ experience, but none so exaggerated as this one. 
This woman subsequently kept herself entirely apart 
from Christian Science and the world at large, so that 
the facts of the case would not become known. They 
soon afterward moved from this territory, and I have 
not seen her since. 

I don’t object, in the least, to your using my name 
in this case, as the records are all perfectly clear, and 
unless the woman is dead by now, I am sure she is still 
travelling around minus her nose. 


Head Injuries—Automobile Accident. 

In February, 1922, I was called to the hospital to 
give emergency attention to an aged man who had just 
been injured by an automobile. He had been run 
down while attempting to cross the boulevard during a 
busy hour. 

The patient, Mr. B., was a Christian Scientist. His 
wife was, and is a prominent Christian Science prac- 


400 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


titioner whose card is carried on the approved list in 
The Christian Science Journal. I had known Mr. B. 
for over twenty years. 

He was conscious, but it was evident that he had 
been severely injured. The hospital office was directed 
to notify his wife. This was done. First aid was 
given and the patient made as comfortable as was 
possible. The practitioner-wife, if she took any notice 
of the matter whatever, may have given “ absent treat- 
ment.” At any rate, she did not visit the hospital. 
The patient gradually passed into unconsciousness, and 
the next day died from intracerebral hemorrhage. 

The practitioner-wife, reputed to be well-to-do, on 
account of a lucrative Christian Science healing busi- 
ness, ignored the bill for medical services rendered to 
her husband. In short, treated the whole affair as if 
nothing had happened. 


Characteristic Hypocrisy. 


A middle-aged man consulted me, less than two 
years ago, on account of large bilateral inguinal her- 
nias. He announced the nature of his trouble, and 
stated that he wished to have an operation performed. 
I was somewhat amused, as this man was a prominent 
Christian Scientist, and at the time the “ first reader ” 
in his church. 

He said that he could no longer put up with his phys- 
ical disability, that he had tried to ignore the condition, 
but that something had to be done. He further stated 
that he had known of so many successful operations 
for rupture, that he had decided to have a surgeon 
relieve his infirmity. An operation was arranged for 
and the usual radical operation done. About a year 
afterward one of the hernias recurred, and a second 


THE FAILURES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 401 


operation was performed. Both times while a patient 
in the hospital he was a “ regular fellow,” asking for 
and receiving medicine for pain. Everything offered 
for the relief of his discomfort was eagerly accepted. 

Since the second operation, I have not been con- 
sulted by him, but am reliably informed that he is still 
the “ reader ” in his church, and that when so officiat- 
ing, wears the same old empty stare. During the rest 
of the week he serves his fellow townsmen in the 
capacity of mayor. 


Peritonitis—A ppendicitis—A bscess. 

On the evening of March 21, 1923, I was called to 
see Florence, little daughter of J. W. Upon arriving 
at the bedside, I elicited the following history from the 
mother: The child had become ill about ten days pre- 
viously with pain in its stomach, worse on the right 
side, it vomited and had some fever. A Christian 
Science practitioner was called the next day and came 
regularly each day for about five days. During this 
time there was no apparent change in the condition of 
the child. About the end of the fifth day the pain 
suddenly subsided, vomiting ceased and the child was 
apparently so much better that the practitioner next 
day pronounced her well, and told the parents she 
would not be back. 

The child, however, evinced no desire to get up, but 
lay perfectly quiet in bed, and took no nourishment 
except a little water, which was retained. After a 
couple of days of this, the pain returned, and later the 
vomiting. These symptoms gradually increased in in- 
tensity up to the time I was called, three days after- 
wards. The healer had been recalled in the meantime, 
but her ministrations were of no avail. 


402 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


Upon examining the child, I found a temperature of 
102° F., a rapid thready pulse, a tense tympanitic ab- 
domen so sensitive that the merest touch caused the 
child to cry out. The lower half of the abdomen was 
slightly dull on light percussion. The history was so 
clear-cut that deep palpation and percussion (which 
would have been very painful to the little patient) 
were not attempted—indeed, it did not seem necessary. 
It was plain that there had been an acute purulent 
infection of the appendix, which had burst open about 
the end of the fifth day, thus accounting for the tem- 
porary cessation of pain and vomiting. A little later, 
peritonitis developed, and at the time of the exami- 
nation the lower abdomen was evidently filling up 
with pus. . 

I urged the immediate removal of the child to a hos- 
pital so that the abdomen could be opened, and the 
patient given the one chance she had left for her life. 
They would not consent to so then, but said they would 
let me know in the morning. I did not hear from them 
until the morning of the second day thereafter, when 
they informed me they had decided to take her to a 
hospital. She was removed to the hospital, where the 
abdomen was opened, and, as we anticipated, found it 
full of pus—at least a quart of it—with diffuse peri- 
tonitis present. Drainage was established, and every- 
thing done to help maintain the little one’s strength, 
but she gradually failed, and died on the third day 
after the operation. 


V 


CONCLUSION 


as a system of treating human ailments, is thus 
seen to be cruel FAILURE. The best that can be 
said of it is that it may divert the patient’s attention 
while other factors make for the cure of his infirmity. 
The worst that should be said of it cannot be ut- 
tered, as mere words are wholly inadequate to depict 
the iniquity of this nefarious traffic in human life. 
Christian Science, shorn of its mask of religion, stalks 
forth the arch-demon of the medical underworld. The 
nearest to a true estimate of the value of this fake 
therapeutic agent is recorded only in the churchyard. 
Christian Science is an assassin of humanity. To 
every form of human misery, it brings its one offering 
—arrogant, boastful, criminal ignorance. It obtrudes 
its hateful presence between suffering humanity and 
the only known means of relief. It supplants surgery 
with sorcery and tender solicitude with brutal neglect. 
With hostile mien it stands guard against curative 
medicine at the bedside of childhood while death strikes 
down the helpless babe. Christian Science is the ad- 
vance agent of scourge and pestilence, the ally of small- 
pox and consumption, the confederate of appendicitis 
and typhoid fever, and the executioner for cancer and 
intestinal obstruction. 
Against every victory of scientific medicine, Chris- 
tian Science makes angry protest. Every advance in 


403 


H's: the medical standpoint, Christian Science, 


404 THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 


preventive medicine is fought through in the face of 
virulent opposition from this miserly-fisted parasite. 

Highwaymen demand: “ Your money or your life. 
Christian Science, beguiling with siren smile, deluding 
with false promise, takes—youR MONEY and YOUR 
LIFE]! 


9 


THE END. 


INDEX .: 


Adam, 20, 83, 117 

Adams, George Wendall, 204 

Alcott, Bronson, 13, 17, 18, 19, 
68-96, 115, 123, 222 

Animal Magnetism, Malicious, 
(See Demonology) 

Alcott, Louisa, 68 

Arens, 25 

Armstrong, 262 

Arnold, Judge, 264 

Autocracy, 165-180 

Autocrats, 180-205 

Autopsy, 313 


Babel, 20 

Bachelder, Jacob, 81 
Baker, Albert, 84, 120, 138 
Baker, Mary Ann, 253 
Barnum, P. T., 264-265 
Binet, 39 

Blood, Babe 

Boehme, Jakob, 20575) 87. 
Brown, ‘Lucretia tr. soa 
Bruce, H. A., 41 


Cambridge History of Ameri- 
can Literature, 11, 76, 220- 
224 

Cases (Medical), (See Fail- 
ures), 338-403 

Cash, 263-295 

Cather, Willa S., 215 

Catholics, Roman, 175, 219 

Chandler, William E., 214, 286 

Choate, Judge, 268 

Church Manual, 165-179 

Clapp, Catherine IL. 247 

Collyer, 57 

Conway, Moncure, 153 

Coué, 175 

Crosby, Sarah G., 84, 119, 120, 
122 


Cruden, 155 
Cudworth, 87 


“Cures” (of Mit at Sci- 
ence), 322-33 
Cutten, G. B., it 45 


Darwin, Charles, 68 

Davis, A. J., 84, 134, 302 

Deceit (Medical), 307-322 

Demonology, (Malicious Ani- 
mal Magnetism), 103-114, 
ESD) 132)1151-158 

Dercum, F. X., 51 

Devil, 20, 44 

Dial, The, 20 

Dickey, Adam H., 180, 186, 189, 
190, 191, 192, 194-201, 203, 
204, 261-262 

Directors, Board of (See Auto- 
crats), 165-180 

Diseases (See Failures) 
Abscess, 357, 372, 395, 401 
Buia: 379, 389, 399, 


Cancer, 341, 350, 367, 376 

Diabetes, 381, 384 

Diphtheria, 343, 346, 365, 
367, 387, 398 

Epilepsy, 393 

Fibroid, Uterine, 375 

Gall Stones, 382 

Goiter, 392, 394 

Heart Disease, Valvular, 384 

Hemorrhage, 344, 347 

Hernia, 354, 397, 401 

Infantile Paralysis, 360 

Insanity, 351, 352 

Lead Poisoning, 377 

Meningitis, 372, 387 

“Mental Obstetrics,” 
8/15 3/2 

Peritonitis, 379, 399, 401 

Pneumonia, 348, 362, 383, 
392, 393 

Scarlet Fever, 357, 365, 387 

Smallpox, 361, 366 


368, 


405 


406 


Stricture, Anal, 397 

Syphilis, 399 

Tuberculosis, 346, 367, 381, 
385, 389 


Tumour, 353, 378 

Tetanus, 362 

Typhoid, 315, 316, 358, 379 

Urinary Retention, Acute, 
389 


Dittemore, John V., 184, 186, 
196-197, 200, 202-204 

Divine Science, 96-103 

Dodge, Judge Frederic, 
196-200 

Dowie, J. A., 

Dresser, H; WW. 4 G1 Noes HA Mey fe 
224 

Dresser, J. A., 34 

Dunmore, Earl of, 246, 260, 262 

Durant, 16 


Eddy, Asa G., 288 
Eddy, Mrs. Mary Baker, Life, 


1-23 
Eggleston, Edward, 108 
Elder, Samuel J., 212 
Emerson, Edward, 80 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 21, 78, 
79, 82, 98 
Eustace, 180, 186 
Evans, W. F., 42 


Failures (Medical), 338-403 

Farlow, Alfred, 100, 258, 262 

Fére, 39 

Finances ees Cash), 263-295 

Fiske, John, 4 

Flournoy, 83, 84 

Foster-Eddy, 156, 271 

Fox Sisters, (See Rochester 
Rappings) 

Franklin, Benjamin, 16, 39 

Frazer, 103 

Frye, Calvin A., 190, 218, 275 

Fuller, Margaret, 21 


Galen, 302 

Garrison, F. H., 108 
Genesis, 95 

Glover, George W., 246 


166, 


INDEX 


Gnostics, 47, 101 
Greatrakes, 302 


Hahnemann, 66 
ae Septimus J., 256-257, 
Re 


Harris, P0764." 65 

Harris, W. T., 69, 70, 76, 77, 
79, 100 

Hart, Bernard, 114-132 

Hawley, John §S., 261, 262 

Hegel, 79-#/, J ist 

Hendricks, Haran 215 

Holmes, Lucy, 247 

Huntoon, Mehitable, 118 

Hypnotism, 99, 175, 176 


Irwin, Will, 215 


Jacoby, G. W., 59 

Jastrow, Joseph, 105, 110-113, 
114, 143 

Johnson, 262 

Jones, Dr., 81 


Kennedy, Richard, 111, 131 
pie Edward E., 258-259, 
262 


Lee, Mother Ann (See also 
Shakers), 13, 64, 76, 134, 
136-140, 222 

Leonard, Mrs. P. J., 259, 262 

Lies, 240-256 

Louttit, George W., 145 


MacNeil, Sir John, 127, 246-247 

Malicious Animal Magnetism 
(See Demonology) 

Marriage and Sex, 134-145 

Matthews, Nathan, 232, 233, 
235, 236 

McClure, S. S., 215 

McLellan, 197, 198 

McLellan, Archibald, 257-258, 
262 


Melville, Herman, 108 

Merritt, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201 

Mesmerism, 15, 39, 45, 52, ig 
75, 70, 104, 105 


INDEX 


Milmine, Georgine, 33, 66, 68, 
76, 84, 112, 120, 122, 127, 131, 
155, 214-217 

Moon, R. C., 59 

More, 87 

Mormons (Latter Day Saints), 
Pay loo: Nog weep eal eae 


Moses, 20 
Munchausen, 240-241, 


4 
Murray, M. A., 157 


Neal, 195, 196, 197, 198, 201 
Neo- ‘Platonism, 19, 70, 76, 100 
Neuburger, 43, 103 

Noyes, Rufus Ri 112 


O’Brien, Mrs. Sibyl Wilbur, 
217-219 

Orphic Sayings (see Bronson 
Alcott), 23, 68-96 


Paget, Stephen, 156-157 

Paine, Martyn, 66 

Parasite, Medical, 299-307 

ea Christian Science, 
173 


Baron, 


Personal Sources, 11-24 

Perry, Baxter E., 235-237 

Peter, St., 47, 231 

Pierce, Franklin, 138 

Plagiarism, 24-32 

Plato, 65, 78, 135 

Plotinus, 71075) OF 

Podmore, Frank, 57, 65, 84, 
104, 134 

Poyen, Charles, 16, 57 

Pratt, Mrs. F. Alcott, 68 

Prayer, 209-210 

Psycho-Analysis, 114-134, 151, 
155 


Publication, Committee of (See 
chapter ‘“‘Suppression”’), 205- 
226 

Publishing Society, Christian 
Science, (See Autocrats), 
180-205 


Quimby, P. P., 13, 16, 17, 24-68, 
pee 224, 242-244, 248, 254, 


407 


Rathvon, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201 
se Dr.. Charles A. L., 250- 


Rice, Mrs., 125 

ea Henry, 158-159, 211- 

Robinson, Samuel, 81 

Rochester Rappings, 52, 57 

Roger, 16 

paaror FB, Be 70, 76,79; 82, 

Schroeder, (eeu 139-142, 
147- 148, 157 

Sex, (See Marriage and Sex), 
134-145 

Shakerism (see also Mother 
Ann Lee), 75, 134, 135, 136- 
140 

Sherman, Clarence E., 81 

Smith, Joseph, Jr., Mormon 
Prophet, 15, 119, 

Smith, William, 154 

Smith, W. F., 219 

Southcott, Joanna, 174 

Spencer, Herbert, 53 

Spiritualism, 15, 52, 57, 77, 122 

Spofford, Daniel H., 33, 78, 96, 
111, 131, 267, 268, 271 

Spofford, M. A., 267 

Statistics, (Church Member- 
ship), 182-184, 285-286 

Stanley, Charles, 268, 271 

Stetson, Augusta E., 126, 127, 
te 143, 145, 146, 149, 150, 


1 
Stoddard, A. M., 72 
Streeter, Frank GC. 180, 188-189, 
192-194 
Strickler, 262 
Summary (Mrs. Eddy), 145-159 
Suppression, 11, 205-226 
Swedenborg, 302 
Swindling, 226-240 


Testimonials of Healing, (See 
Cures), 322-337 

Thoreau, 68, 77, 79 

Tremearne, A. J. N., 157 

Trismegistus, Hermes, 11, 223 


408 


Tyler, E. B., 155 

Turner, George Kibby, 215 

Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clem- 
ens), 165, 167, 182, 203, 222, 
226, 227, 233, 240, 276, 279 


Upham, C. W., 145, 152-153 
Walton, Christopher, 86 


Watts, John R., 183 
Wells, F bely 158 


INDEX 


Wentworth, Charles O., 247 
Wentworth, Boel 435; 44, 247 
Wentworth, Mrs. Sally, 247 
Whitman, Walt, 178 
Wiggin, James Henry, 104, 228 
Wilbur, Sibyl (see O’Brien) 
Witchcraft, (see Demonology) 
Woodbury, BL 267 
Woodbury, Mrs. eee he 
143, 145, 146, 155 
Wright, Wallace W., 131 


RELIGION AND HEALING, ETC. 





S. D. GORDON 
Quiet Talks About the Healing Christ 


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TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION 





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) 


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INSPIRATION AND SELF-HELP 





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